当遇到阅读材料的内容非常陌生时，尽管表面上看没有生词，也难免会出现“读不懂”的现象，本文综合整理提供了托福考试技巧：教你猜测段落大意，以供各位考生复习参考，希望对考生复习有所帮助。
托福阅读段子举例分析
Cancer Recovery
A 32-year-old woman in Belgium has become the first woman ever to give birth after having ovarian tissue removed， frozen and then implanted back in her body. The patient had the tissue removed in 1997 in hopes of preserving her fertility because she had Hodgkin‘s lymphoma， a type of cancer， and was about to undergo chemotherapy with drugs likely to damage her ovaries and cause infertility. She and her doctors hoped that once she was cured， the ovarian tissue could be thawed and returned to her abdomen to produce eggs.
文中的一些生词，如：ovarian tissue， fertility， Hodgkin’s lymphoma， chemotherapy， thawed， abdomen(如果它们是生词的话)会妨碍我们对段落大义的理解，但我们熟悉的“give birth， produce eggs”告诉我们本段落所叙述的内容与妇女生育有关，而且我们还可以判断出这是一例不同寻常的生育，因为removed(摘除)、frozen(冷冻)、implanted(移植)、returned(放回)等这些关键词向我们显示了这样一个关键信息。
从第二句得知，这位病人摘除的ovarian tissue是希望能保护她的fertility。最后一句又说，先前摘除的ovarian tissue 移植回去后可以produce eggs;再从生活常识中得知，能使妇女产卵生育的器官是卵巢。这样，综合起来我们就推测出了ovarian的意义是“卵巢”、fertility的意义是“生育能力”。而至于这位妇女得的什么癌症(Hodgkin‘s lymphoma)我们可以忽略不计，只要抓住“治疗这种疾病的药物会导致’不育‘”这一主要信息即可(第二句后半句)。
至此，我们可以大胆地推测本段的核心大意：文中提到的比利时妇女患有癌症(lymphoma淋巴)，而化疗这种癌症的药物会引起不育(infertility);为保护她的生育能力(fertility)，治疗前，医生摘除了她的卵巢(ovarian)冷冻起来，待疾病治好以后，再生育。
托福阅读真题及答案：饮食习惯与热力学定律
【Introduction】
任何饮食习惯都无法违反热力学定律，即使现在充斥各种神奇的减重方法，减轻体重的唯一方法只有消耗的热量。但新的研究指出增加体重的身体位置可以提供线索来决定那种饮食习惯将最适合你。
【Section One】Article
No diet has ever been able to defy the laws of thermodynamics. Whether you go low carb, low fat, low this or low that, the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. Even the new "it" diet, volumetrics—which uses fancy terms such as energy density and satiety to describe why filling up on certain low-calorie, water-based foods like celery makes you less hungry—can‘t miraculously melt away fat. But new research indicates that where on your body you pack on extra kilograms may provide a clue to determining which diet will work best for you.
It is already widely accepted that even the most rigorously adhered-to diet will not produce the same results from person to person. Some of us are simply genetically predisposed to burn more calories more efficiently than others. Restricting those calories, as you do on a diet, will similarly lead to differing results. But the biggest wild card in the diet game may be how you crank out insulin.
As digestion breaks down much of what we eat into sugary, energy-rich fuel that helps keep us on the go, insulin triggers the body to store excess sugar floating around the bloodstream as fat. Insulin was particularly important in our caveman days, when we needed the energy from one meal to last as long as possible, until we had hunted down the next. "Insulin is the hormone of feast," says Gary D. Foster, director of the center for obesity research and education at the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
But nowadays, with food so plentiful that groups like Weight Watchers are making a fortune promoting portion control, our insulin is often forced to work overtime, sweeping up the excess carbohydrates we pour into our system from candy bars or fruit juice or starchy foods like pasta. Sometimes insulin can do such a good job of responding to a spike in blood sugar that it causes those levels to quickly drop. This in turn can lead to feelings of hunger shortly after a big meal. For this reason, many scientists think insulin‘s ride on the blood-sugar roller coaster may be a stimulus for overeating and, as a result, weight gain. It would be nice if there were an easy way to determine how aggressive your particular insulin response is, and now it appears there is.
In a study of 73 obese adults published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (J.A.M.A.), Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at the Children‘s Hospital Boston, and his colleagues looked at high- and low-insulin secretors. People who rapidly secrete a lot of insulin after eating a little bit of sugar tend to carry their excess weight around their waist—the so-called apple shape. People who secrete less insulin carry their excess fat around their hips—the pear shape. Those differences are more than -secreting, pear-shaped people will do equally well on either type of diet. But the results went deeper than simply how much weight was lost.
Over the course of six months, high-secreting, apple people lost an average of 6 kg on a low-glycemic diet and just 2.3 kg on a low-fat diet. Low-secreting, pear people lost about 4.5 kg on both diets. At the end of 18 months, however, the pear-shaped people had gained back half of the weight they had lost on either diet. Apple-shaped people gained back almost 1.4 of the 2.3 kg they lost on the low-fat diet but kept off all the weight they lost on the low-glycemic diet. While the study is revealing, almost nothing about it is simple. It‘s not clear just what the mechanism is that links body shape and insulin levels—a crucial detail if scientists are going to understand the full implications of their findings. More important, nothing suggests that apple-shaped people should simply dash out to sign up for an Atkins-type low-carbohydrate diet.
True, a large report published in J.A.M.A. earlier this year showed that regardless of body shape, Atkins produces the greatest short-term weight loss. ("If you want to look good in your wedding gown, I would go for Atkins," says Dr. Anastassios Pittas, assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.) But adherents tend to fall off the low-carb wagon and quickly gain back unwanted kilograms. What‘s more, the Atkins diet allows only a small fraction of calories to come from carbs, compared with 40% on the new study‘s low-glycemic regimen. The more balanced diet allows—indeed, encourages—people to eat whole-grain cereals and other complex carbs that take longer to digest and thus don‘t cause the rapid fat production that accompanies spikes in blood sugar. Atkins‘ more restrictive regimen may reduce fat even faster, but people lose weight on both diets. "Atkins just does it with a bludgeon instead of a chisel," says Ludwig.
What‘s clearer from the study is that apple-shaped people should probably not choose low-fat diets, because the white rice or other types of simple carbs they are still allowed to eat may have a yo-yo effect on blood-sugar levels, making them hungrier sooner. The study didn‘t evaluate whether these people would do better on an Ornish-style vegetarian diet that restricts fat intake and has dieters make up the difference by eating lots of complex carbs, such as brown rice and oats—which are high in fiber and tend to make people feel fuller longer—as well as low-sugar fruits like blueberries.
For apple-shaped people hunting for the right diet, a blood test to determine insulin levels may help confirm which regimen will work best for them. But for pears, it remains a toss-up. So until scientists find out more about their body shape, they‘ll have to lose the old-fashioned way: eating less.
1. 研究指出，高胰岛素和身材像苹果的人，靠限制脂肪和热量的饮食来减重，效果较以低血糖饮食减重差。(低血糖饮食是指限制由饼干和马铃薯等甜食和淀粉类食物获得单纯的碳水化合物)
2. A new research indicates that where on your body you pack on extra kilograms may provide a clue to determining which diet will work best for you.
3. People who rapidly secrete a lot of insulin after eating a little bit of sugar tend to carry their excess weight around their waist—the so-called apple shape. People who secrete less insulin carry their excess fat around their hips—the pear shape.
4. 何谓“溜溜球效应”(yo-yo effect) 呢?简单的说，就是指体重像溜溜球一样忽高忽低。因为体重的减轻是由流失水分开始，然後是肌肉，最後才是脂肪。因此当你在节/绝食这段过程中，身体会先消耗肌肉，而在你再度进食後，身体会将食物转化成脂肪来囤积，而这样循环下去造成的效果，想减的脂肪没减掉，反而越堆越多，而减掉的只是水分跟肌肉，自然就越减越肥了!这样的减肥方法不但没用，而且伤身(长期饮食不均衡，回复饮食候更容易造成脂肪的堆积)，简直是「赔了夫人又折兵」!
托福阅读真题及答案：隐私的保护
Introduction
随着社会发展，人们越来越重视对隐私的保护。可以看到指纹扫描运用到生活各个方面来保护我们的隐私，例如保险柜，笔记本电脑等等。但是指纹扫描的运用都可以保护大家的隐私么?中校方所期待的新技术就遭到家长们的反对。。。Vocabulary n.指纹, 手印 vt.采指纹
学区
扫描器和扫描仪
废弃：因为无用而丢掉;抛弃 plan was scrapped注意用法
v.不准
v.拾落穗, 收集
n.受严格统治而失去人性的社会
词汇都比较简单，建议泛读
Article The lunch lines weren‘t moving fast enough for Linda Stoll, head of food programs at the Boulder Valley, Colo., school district. Because of that, kids had barely enough time to sit and eat before the lunch period was over. So, last year, Stoll began looking for ways to speed up the queue. She discovered that many students, especially kindergarteners, can‘t remember their six-digit ID number, which they‘re required to type into keypads at the end of lunch lines. She then found out that there was technology that would allow a scanner to identify a kid qualified for lunch with the swipe of a finger, moving him or her quickly along. It would help kids who regularly forget their lunch money, and it would potentially remove some of the stigma faced by children who receive special tickets for free or reduced lunch. She proposed the idea, believing it would be the perfect solution.
It turned out to be the perfect storm. Dozens of parents raised concerns about privacy. Many mentioned identity theft. Others expressed fear that immigrant children might be unfairly tracked by government. Eventually, Stoll‘s plan was scrapped.
Elementary and high school students in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and West Virginia use finger scans to pay for lunch — and even to check into class. But in many other states, the parental outcry about privacy has stopped the technology in its tracks. Michigan and Iowa have passed laws essentially barring schools from taking electronic fingerprints of children. Last month, Illinois enacted a law requiring schools to get parental consent before capturing an image of a child‘s finger.
Generally, student information collected by schools is protected by the federal government‘s privacy laws. So schools can‘t simply give away information gleaned from a student‘s fingerprint. Still, many parents and privacy law experts remain anxious about records accessible to companies managing a school‘s computer system — and whether that information can moved if that company is ever sold.
Americans have historically resisted fingerprints of any kind, associating them with law enforcement. "But through the back door, schools are making decisions that fly in the face of deeply held commitments to privacy by throwing on these kids fingerprint programs," says Helen Nissenbaum, a New York University professor of culture and communication who studies the intersection of technology and ethics.
Finger scanning is a type of biometric, or a form of identification. So is a person‘s voice, even odor, sweat pores and lips. It‘s not known how many schools use finger scans and other biometrics. But observers of the $1 billion North American biometrics industry say schools represent a small but growing share of their market.
For an example of how the technology typically works, consider another Colorado school district: St. Vrain Valley. School administrators spend hours at the start of each school year scanning several points on the student‘s right index finger. "The information is saved within our system — it doesn‘t go anyplace else," says Shelly Allen, director of nutrition services for the 23,000-student district. When the student reaches the end of the line, she places an index finger on a pad about the size of a car‘s garage opener. Her name, and sometimes an image of her face, appears on a computer screen in front of the cashier. Kids with dirty or sweaty fingers are allowed to use their ID card, as are students who can‘t have an image taken of them because of religious or cultural issues. Allen says the system has helped add at least 10 minutes to lunch periods that in some schools last just 20 minutes. The technology hasn‘t necessarily saved money: the number of cafeteria employees has largely remained unchanged.
But there is nothing static about family reaction. Parents are often caught off-guard by the arrival of the new technology in their children‘s school. Last fall, Jim Karlsberger‘s eight-year-old son returned from school with a newsletter briefly reporting that lunchroom finger scanning was set to begin. "I thought it was Orwellian," says Karlsberger, a 43-year-old hotel manager in Williams, Ariz. "I find it hard to believe that someone, someday, won‘t find a way to compromise the information on my child‘s fingerprint." He rallied dozens of parents and the American Civil Liberties union to derail the school‘s plan. Now Tom McCraley, the 760-student school district‘s superintendent, says that before considering finger scanning, "I‘d want to make sure parents had a full understanding about it."
In Boulder, Stoll still hopes to someday use fingerprint scanning in her schools. "I‘m just disappointed our parents wouldn‘t let us be on the forefront of this technology," she says.
Reference 隐私：生物识别技术应用中不可承受之重 Homework did Stoll believe the new technology help kids?
Stoll‘plan was crapped?
is the response of Tom Mcraley facing to the parents‘ fight?
you are parent, what is your opinion?
参考答案及解析:
1. It would help kids who regularly forget their lunch money, and it would potentially remove some of the stigma faced by children who receive special tickets for free or reduced lunch
2. the parental concerns about privacy had stopped it.
3. he insist that before considering finger scanning he want to make sure parents had a full understanding about it.