新托福阅读中的指代题在官方给出的出题率中占0到2题，是突破高分的关键，很多考生反映指代题看似简单，但模棱两可的答案挺多，容易选错。本文中，朗阁海外考试研究中心的郑老师将结合新托福阅读中指代题的特点，为大家分析如何在短时间内攻破指代题。
 

　　一、考试特点

　　我们先看一下托福官方指南对新托福阅读指代题这一题型的描述：

　　These questions ask you to identify referential relationships between the words in the passage. Often the relationships is between pronoun and its antecedent (the word to which the pronoun refers). Sometimes other kinds of grammatical reference are tested (like which or this).

　　The four answers choices will be words or phrases from the passage. Only one choice is the word to which the highlighted word refers.

　　总结起来新托福阅读指代题有以下三个特点：
 

　　1. 问题除了常规代词(it/they/them/these)外，还有which, this等语法指代;

　　Which是定语从句或者非限制定语从句的关系指代词，此外新托福阅读真题出现过this + problem/view等非常规语法指代题。
 

　　2. 代词所指必须是前面提到过的词;

　　代词指代在英语里面可分为前指和后指，在新托福阅读考试里面只考前指，也就是指代前文提到过的事物。
 

　　3. 答案可以是词、短语或者前面谈到的一件事情;

　　新托福阅读指代题突破我们常规的指代概念，不局限于指代单个词，它可以是短语，甚至是完整的一句话。

　　问题形式：The word “X” in the passage refers to……
 

　　二、考试的内容

　　托福阅读指代题常考查的代词包括：they, them, it, this, these, which, others, some, none, this + n等。

　　首先同学们要掌握这些词本身的意思，考查的内容虽然是指代，但我们要追溯起源头，也就是这些代词本身的意思，这和词汇题是一个概念，只有知道词本身的意思，才能在此基础上推导出来该词的同义词。下面我们就逐一分析一下每个代词本身的意思。

　　1. They: 他(它)们，复数代词，注意这个代词既可以指代有生命的东西，也可以指代无生命的东西。

　　eg: My father and mother are here. They visit every week.

　　Take your books, they might be useful.
 

　　2. Them: 他(它)们，是they的宾格，所以同样这个词即可以指代有生命的东西，也可以指代无生命的东西。

　　eg: My father and brother are playing basketball, I bought drinks for them.

　　Where are my shoes? I can’t find them.
 

　　3. It: 指代单数名词，可以指代无生命的东西，也可以指代有生命的东西(指代动物)，一般是特指(the + n); 此外还可以指代前面所说的整件事情。

　　eg: I pick up the plate and put it on the table.

　　Where is the mouse? The cat ate it.

　　He said he can swim across that big river, but I don’t believe it.
 

　　4. This: 这个，可以指代前面说的事物(单数可数名词或者不可数名词)、动作、过程等，通常是指代离它最近的东西。在托福阅读指代题里面通常用作限定词，形式：this + n

　　eg: Many millions of years after ferns evolved (but long before the Hawaiian Island were born from the sea), another kind of flora evolved on Earth: the seed-bearing plants. This was a wonderful biological invention.

　　This根据词本身的意思，是指离它最近的事物，所以答案是the development of plants that produce seeds

　　The killing of birds of prey by wind turbines has pitted environmentalists who champion wildlife protection against environmentalists who promote renewable wind energy. Researchers are evaluating how serious this problem is and hope to find ways to eliminate or sharply reduce this problem.

　　这题考的是限定词this + problem, 那么所指的就是前面提到离这句话最近的问题：The killing of birds of prey…
 

　　5. These: 这些, this的复数形式，指代复数名词，其它用法同this一样

　　eg: They carried on their farm operations with mules and they had no surplus of these, seldom more than four.
 

　　6. Which:(非限制)定语从句中的关系代词，指代前面的先行词，先行词可以是单个名词、短语或者一个句子

　　eg: He has a book which is written by Hemingway.

　　He likes reading books, which is a good habit.

　　She said she’d been waiting for an hour, which was true.
 

　　7. 不定代词：托福阅读指代题中常考不定代词有both, some, other, and none etc. 不定代词顾名思义就是不指明代替任何特定名词，用在句子中可以做主语、宾语、表语和定语等。

　　eg: Some of his stories were quite amusing.(主语)

　　They are both doctors.(表语)

　　These trousers are wet—I’ll change into my other ones.(定语)

　　She had none of her mother’s beauty.(宾语)

　　所以不定代词在新托福阅读里面的指代，要具体看不定代词在句子中所充当的语法成分。


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