就題材而言,ACT閱讀材料分4類:小說(prose fiction)、社會(huì)科學(xué)(social sciences)、人文(humanities)、自然科學(xué)(natural sciences)。其中,小說來自英美作家作品的節(jié)選。社會(huì)科學(xué)取材于人類學(xué)、考古學(xué)、傳記、經(jīng)濟(jì)、教育、地理、歷史、政治、心理學(xué)等。人文類文章多涉及建筑學(xué)、藝術(shù)、舞蹈、電影、文學(xué)評(píng)論、傳記、音樂、隨筆、哲學(xué)、電視等。自然科學(xué)類一般包括天文學(xué)、生物學(xué)、化學(xué)、地質(zhì)學(xué)、醫(yī)學(xué)、物理學(xué)等方面的內(nèi)容。
直接事實(shí)題:
此類題目一般是就文中所提供的信息進(jìn)行直接提問,需要考生找到正確的對(duì)應(yīng)處,并作同義轉(zhuǎn)換。
原文: “The revisionist interpretation, which I support, does not enshrine dinosaurs as paragons of intellect, but it does maintain that they were not small brained after all. They had the “right-sized” brains for reptiles of their body size.”
譯文:我所支持的修正主義者的解釋,就是不把恐龍視為智力的模范,但是也主張他們畢竟不是小腦。對(duì)他們這種身形的爬行動(dòng)物來說,他們的腦的大小正好合適。
題目:According to the passage, what is the revisionist interpretation concerning the relationship between intelligence and physical size?
A. Dinosaurs actually had relatively large brains.
B. Dinosaurs were paragons of intellect.
C. Dinosaurs were relatively small brained.
D. Dinosaurs’ brains were appropriately sized.
舉例作用題:
此類題目就文中的例子進(jìn)行提問,需要考生回答此例子在文中所起的作用。
原文: “Government is so technical that even career civil servants cannot explain what is happening. In 1978 I attended a seminar on federal estate and gift tax, where the Internal Revenue Service lawyers responsible for this area frankly confessed that they did not understand the Tax Reform Act of 1976.”
譯文:政府是如此的有技術(shù)含量以至于甚至連公務(wù)員都不能解釋正在發(fā)生著什么。1978年,我出席了一個(gè)聯(lián)邦資產(chǎn)稅收的研討會(huì),在這里負(fù)責(zé)的美國(guó)國(guó)內(nèi)稅局的律師坦白地承認(rèn)到,他們不明白1976年的稅收改革法案。
題目:The author uses the description of the tax seminar in 1978 to make the point that some governmental issues are:
A. so technical that not even career civil servants can understand them.
B. so technical that only career civil servants can understand them.
C. more technical than they used to be before the passage of the Tax Reform Act.
D. too technical for anyone other than an Internal Revenue Service tax lawyer to understand.
推論題:
此類題目與直接事實(shí)題不同,不是就文中的信息進(jìn)行直接的提問,而是考查作者所寫的某處內(nèi)容實(shí)際暗示了什么。
原文:“The remarkable thing about dinosaurs is not that they became extinct, but that they dominated the earth for so long…”
“People, on this criterion, are scarcely worth mentioning—5 million years perhaps since Australopithecus, a mere 50, 000 for our own species, Homo sapiens…”
譯文:恐龍著名的一件事情不是他們滅絕了,而是他們占據(jù)了地球如此之長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間。
人類,在這種標(biāo)準(zhǔn)下,根本不值得一提——大概5百萬年前的南方古猿,僅僅5萬年前的我們自己的物種,智人。
題目:In the context of the passage, what does the author mean when he states that “people … are scarcely worth mentioning” (lines 81-82)?
A. Compared to the complex social behavior of dinosaurs, human behavior seems simple.
B. Compared to the longevity of dinosaurs, humans have been on earth a very short time.
C. Compared to the size of dinosaurs, human seem incredibly small.
D. Compared to the amount of study done on dinosaurs, study of human behavior is severely lacking
現(xiàn)在全世界每年有近250萬人次參加ACT考試,ACT考試不僅考查學(xué)生對(duì)英語的掌握能力,還要考查數(shù)學(xué)、科學(xué)等多個(gè)方面,是一項(xiàng)能力測(cè)試,而閱讀也是其中很重要的一個(gè)部分,以上介紹的便是常見的三種ACT閱讀題型,三種解法異中有同,均符合一條原則,即所有答案一定可以在原文中找到,切不可作任何聯(lián)想。