突破长难句

关于长难句

  1. 长难句是阅读理解的主要障碍之一,文章读不懂、读不透,很大程度上是因为文中的一些长难句没读懂、没读透。
  2. 长难句设题是阅读理解的常态,看不懂长难句,必然失掉相应的分数。
  3. 句子是词汇、语法及其背后的逻辑的综合体,长难句的难表现在这三个要素上。
  4. 分析长难句的一般方法是先找出结构词,即主谓宾/主系表,再分析修饰语。因为:
    1. 英语句子的核心成分是主谓、主谓宾或主系表,所以再长的句子主干也只有两三个词,找到这两三个词,也就找到了句子的主干,从而就能获得大致的句意。
    2. 除去主干的两三个词,其他部分全是修饰语。通常句子越长,修饰语就越复杂,是对语法能力的考验。
    3. 语法是分析长难句的工具,反过来,长难句的分析练习也是学习和练习语法的契机。
    4. 词意不是词义,前者是单词在句子中的意思,后者是单词在词典上的含义。只有理解了词意,才有可能准确地理解句子。
  5. 学习分析长难句的最终目的是为了不再分析,也就是能够像母语者那样,阅读时无需停顿,无需回头,自然就能准确理解。但这种自然的状态不是自然就能获得的,需要专门的刻意的练习。
  6. 长难句练习的关键在于准确理解,失去了准确,长难句的练习毫无意义。本来是为了准确才练的,不准还练个啥?

外刊及各类考试长难句

  1. People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does. (Michel Foucault)
  2. Indeed, it may turn out to be the equivalent for neuroscience of what Eisenstein’s theory of relativity was for physics.
  3. Materials from which the medicine is made are plentiful in nature, found in everything ranging from shrimp shells, insect bodies to living plants.
  4. As unlikely as it may seem, scientists have discovered rare cases of patients missing large portions of their brain, yet are somehow still able to live almost normal lives.
  5. People will only start shopping when they can’t afford not to.
  6. I have gone from “hiding” in the back of the classroom and not wanting to call attention to myself to raising my hand–even when I sometimes wasn’t 100 percent sure I had the right answer.
  7. Throughout that time, in every job I have done, I’ve been inspired by the enormous potential that working in politics and taking part in public life holds.
  8. The abrupt closure of the only factory making a vital pigment because of its proximity to the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan affected most of the world’s big carmakers.
  9. Whatever color changes the ocean experiences in the coming decades will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes.
  10. Those unable to pay for their meals can instead volunteer as waiters and waitresses, and dishwashers, or look after the buildings and equipment for the cafe.
  11. My kids have been annoying me and the last straw was when my car broke down,and I was stuck by the highway for an hour before someone stopped to help.
  12. When they get excited about the work, all their energy gets poured into the job.
  13. Some companies have made the manufacturing of clean and safe products their main selling point and emphasize it in their advertising.
  14. The frequency with which the famous saying is borrowed mirrors a heated debate on environmental protection: whether to place wilderness at the heart of what is to be preserved.
  15. Jet planes fly people from one end of the earth to the other, allowing them a freedom of movement undreamt of a hundred years ago.
  16. But the donator who started sending envelopes with cash to deserving causes, accompanied by an article from the local paper, has made a northern German city believe in fairytales.
  17. The schools that I visit in Nottingham are full of experienced staff committed to giving our children a caring and inspiring learning environment.
  18. They had no connection with the outside world for more than a thousand years, giving them plenty of time to build more than 1000 huge stone figures, called moat, for which the island is most famous.
  19. The way most of us spend our mornings is exactly opposite to the conditions that promote flexible, open-minded thinking.
  20. Grown-ups are often surprised by how well they remember something they learned as children but have never practiced ever since.
  21. Big Wind employees fly the kite and for a few minutes show students how pulling on one line and then on the other controls the direction the kite goes in. Then the controls are given to the students.
  22. Given that this is the case, why aren’t students taught to manage conflicts the way they are taught to solve math problems, drive cars, or stay physically fit?
  23. Students in the United States, at the same time, are racing to learn Chinese, so they will be ready for life in a world where China is an equal power with the United States.
  24. While searching the archives for information about the university’s higher certificate for women, I was astonished to come across what must be the very letter Jex-Blake wrote.
  25. The function of teaching is to create the conditions and the climate that will make it possible for children to design the most efficient system for teaching themselves to read.
  26. In 1879, Oxford University in England asked Prof. James Murray to serve as editor for what was to be the most ambitious dictionary in the history of the English language.
  27. The internal state which remains unchanged over a period of time, and which makes the individual behave regularly in a variety of situations, is what is meant by an attitude.
  28. Perhaps the best sign of how computer and internet use pushes up demand for paper comes from the high-tech industry itself, which sees printing as one of its most promising new markets.
  29. Newton is shown as a gifted scientist with very human weaknesses who stood at the point in history where magic ended and science began.
  30. The most important idea behind the kind of party planning described here is that it brings parents and children closer together.
  31. Should you choose to join us, we know that you will not be disappointed!
  32. But if you had been around 15,000 years ago, during the last ice age, would it have been the same?
  33. If this state of affairs had lasted, English today would be close to German.
  34. Little did we think, back in 1999, that our experiment in reinventing the film festival — to make a festival that celebrated overlooked films and the women and men who made those films — would become a landmark annual event in the life of our community and contribute to the repairs of the remarkable Virginia Theater.
  35. Teenagers are isolated in schools, and many old people in retirement communities, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes.
  36. There are also rules which deal with the standard of services you get from, say, travel agents, shoe repairers, hairdressers and builders.
  37. The animal is, in fact, playing a very dangerous game with its environment, a game in which it must make decisions—a matter of life or death.
  38. The overly willful and unbending child may have trouble obeying teachers or coaches, for example, or trouble keeping friends.
  39. Rising through the roof is the Tower of the Sun, inside which stands a 160–foot–tall Tree of Life.
  40. Ill and suffering as she was after the inhuman punishment, she yet remained so cheerful and confident, eager to devote the little strength left to her to helping the other comrades.
  41. That our environment has little, if anything, to do with our abilities, characteristics and behavior is central to this theory.
  42. The reason that robocalls are a headache has less to do with amount than precision.
  43. In the 1960s, we were all a little wild and couldn’t get away from home far enough or fast enough to prove we could do it on our own.
  44. One explanation is the law of overlearning, which can be stated as follows: Once we have learned something, additional learning trials increase the length of time we will remember it.
  45. I thought it would be fun for me to get involved in making time to do something because sometimes it’s all work and no play.
  46. In the spring, Dad delivered boxes full of baby chickens, and when I was a boy it was such fun to stick your fingers through one of the holes of the boxes and let the baby birds peck on your fingers.
  47. Dozens of Motorola employees in Beijing refused to sign the agreement by Tuesday, which provides a compensation(补偿金)equal to a month’s salary multiplied by the number of years an employee has worked in the company.
  48. The robotic vehicles, though with necessary modern equipment such as advanced computers and GPS guidance, had trouble figuring out fast enough the blocks ahead that a two-year-old human recognizes immediately.
  49. A quarter of those using outdated computers in Britain said they were quite or very dissatisfied with their everyday job compared to 16 percent of those who had enjoyed an advantage from up-to-date technology.
  50. The survey also said that among workers dealing with outdated equipment, there was a 35 percent greater probability they would take six or more days of sick-leave per year compared with the average worker.
  51. Whereas a woman’s closest female friend might be the first to tell her to leave a failing marriage, it wasn’t unusual to hear a man say he didn’t know his friend’s marriage was in serious trouble until he appeared one night asking if he could sleep on the sofa.
  52. When Americans visit Europe for the first time, they usually find Germany more “Foreign” than France because the German they see on signs and ads seems much more different from English than French does.
  53. Decision thinking is not unlike poker(扑克)— it often matters not only what you think, but also what others think you think and what you think they think you think.
  54. Most believe the footprints are nothing more than ordinary animal tracks, which had been made larger as they melted and refroze in the snow.
  55. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?
  56. First put forward by the French mathematician Pierre de Format in the seventeenth century, the theory had baffled and beaten the finest mathematical minds, including a French woman scientist who made a major advance in working out the problem, and who had to dress like a man in order to be able to study at the Ecolab Polytechnique.
  57. The study also showed that the most sought-after quality in a person who was looking for a job was communication skills, noted as “very important” by 92 percent of the companies.
  58. Finally, although some social science majors may still find it more difficult than their technically trained classmates to find their first job, recent graduates report that they don’t regret their choice of study.
  59. In particular, he showed that all games fall into two classes: there are what he called games of “perfect information”, games like chess where the players can’t hide anything or play tricks; they don’t win by chance, but by means of logic and skills.
  60. The workers who get a promotion, the student whose grades improve, the foreigner who learns a new language—all these are examples of people who have measurable results to show for their efforts.
  61. As families move away from their stable community, their friends of many years, their extended family relationships, the informal flow of information is cut off, and with it the confidence that information will be available.
  62. The individual now has more information available than any generation, and the task of finding that one piece of information relevant to his or her specific problem is complicated and time-consuming.
  63. Talks on a China-Japan-Republic of Korea free trade agreement (FTA) are expected to start in the first half of this year, with May seen as the earliest date.
  64. It is probably not by chance that young people in different parts of the world today try to start a movement of struggle and pressure which is shaking governments and attempting to put new values in practice in a world which they consider as unfair or even as horrible as the rule by Hitler.
  65. Well educated at home at a time when women of good families were not encouraged to do anything more important than work hard at arts, she became the writer of a magazine named Correspondence des Families in which she was brave enough to publish articles by the revolutionaries who believed in communism.
  66. Whereas a woman’s closest female friend might be the first to tell her to leave a failing marriage, it wasn’t unusual to hear a man say he didn’t know his friend’s marriage was in serious trouble until he appeared one night asking if he could sleep on the sofa.
  67. This chance discovery ended a 12-day search by the Library Company of Philadelphia for a historical treasure—a 120-page diary kept 190 years ago by Deborah Logan.
  68. The debate was launched by the Government, which invited anyone with an opinion of the BBC—including ordinary listeners and viewers to say what was good or bad about the Corporation, and even whether they thought it was worth keeping.
  69. And, more generally, he is less likely to view life—as Americans do—as a series of situations in which one has to learn to think for oneself, to solve problems on one’s own and even to discover new problems for which creative solutions are wanted.
  70. Then he was off to the house, wheeling past the sleepy town square in Bentonville, a remote Arkansas town of 1920, where Sam Walton started with a little store that grew into a 6 billion dollars discount chain called Wall-Mart.
  71. Over three centuries English gradually swallowed French, and by the end of the 15th century what had developed was a modified, greatly enriched language—Middle English—with about 10000 “borrowed” French words.
  72. It is necessary to consider the amount of credit granted; interest rates, which may vary slightly; the number and range of outlets, though most cards cover major garages, hotels, restaurants and department stores; and of course, what happens if your card is lost or stolen.
  73. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Wednesday held a virtual meeting with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, during which they had candid discussions on issues of concern for both sides, marking the second conversation between Chinese and US senior trade and economic officials in less than a week and signaling that the two sides are accelerating trade talks amid growing uncertainty and lingering disputes.
  74. Apart from the fact that twenty-seven acts of Parliament govern the terms of advertising, no regular advertiser dares promote a product that fails to live up to the promise of his advertisements.
  75. The increase in food production in these regions led to significant growth in population, while efforts to control the flow of water to maximize the irrigation of cultivated areas and to protect the local inhabitants from hostile forces outside the community provoked(激起)the first steps toward cooperative activities on a large scale.
  76. In setting out its plans for a five-term year, Nottingham City Council is seeking to reduce the summer holiday down to four and a half weeks, with a more balanced five terms of roughly eight weeks, each followed by a two-week break.
  77. A Canadian is a person wearing English tweeds, a Hong Kong shirt and Spanish shoes, who sips Brazilian coffee sweetened with Philippine sugar from a Bavarian cup while nibbling on Swiss cheese, sitting at a Danish desk over a Persian rug, after coming home in a German car from an Italian movie…and writes to a Member of Parliament with a Japanese ballpoint pen on French paper, demanding that something be done about foreigners taking away our Canadian jobs.
  78. Declaring that he was opposed to using this unusual animal husbandry technique to clone humans, he ordered that federal funds not be used for such an experiment—although no one had proposed to do so—and asked an independent panel of experts chaired by Princeton President Harold Shapiro to report back to the White House in 90 days with recommendations for a national policy on human cloning.
  79. We even have different words for some foods, meat in particular, depending on whether it is still out in the fields or at home ready to be cooked, which shows the fact that the Saxon peasants were doing the farming, while the upper-class Normans were doing most of the eating.
  80. It is reported that the difficulties the American scientists met when they succeeded in sending up the first man-made satellite considered by some to be of fine quality are a lot greater than those the climbers came across when they tried to reach the top of the highest mountain in the world that lies in the southwest of China.
  81. Coupled with the growing quantity of information is the rapid development of technologies which enable the storage and delivery of more information with greater speed to more locations than has ever been possible before.
  82. If you ask people to name one person who had the greatest effect on the English language, you will get answers like “Shakespeare”, “Samuel Johnson”, and “Webster”, but none of these men had any effect at all compared to a man who didn’t even speak English—–William, the Conqueror.
  83. Volcano rabbits live on the slopes of volcanoes in Mexico, and recent studies have shown that the lower range of their habitat has already shifted upward about 700 meters, but there are not suitable plants for them to move higher, so they are stuck in the middle.
  84. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
  85. Under increasing pressure about the serial management mishaps at Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg said he would not relinquish his title as chairman and that investors who wanted him to step down from the position and focus on being chief executive were misguided.

附录:英语特殊表达角度

  1. Using Your Dictionary couldn’t be easier.
  2. All that glitters is not gold.
  3. We can’t all get there.
  4. With her talent and determination, it appears that the sky could be the limit for Alice Moore.
  5. There couldn’t be anything that’s more incorrect.
  6. I can’t thank you enough for what you have done for us.
  7. We can’t emphasize the importance of the meeting too much.
  8. How long will it be before humankind find a solution to the disease?
  9. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  10. We cannot put off living until we are ready. 比较:We cannot say anything until we are ready.
  11. Human is no less an animal than a mokey is.