托福阅读撩题必备技能——后置定语

　　后置定语在考试中是一个应用比较普遍的语法概念，通过后置定语的识别以此快速确立句子或者短语的中心，有助于我们在分析语段的过程中适时聚焦注意力，同时不少题目也会涉及到与后置定语相关的线索(句子简化题居多)，那今天我们从其他的几个题型来感受一下它的威力吧。
　　常见的后置定语表现形式：
　　The leaders (present at the meeting) are very famous
　　His lover (for his country) is very great
　　The kid (running on the ground) is cute
　　The girl (punished by the teacher) cried
　　She has a meeting (to attend)
　　Ilike the chocolate (that you bought for me yesterday)
　　Paragraph4: Forehead rubbing by male deer on buckrubs presumably sends a great deal of information to other members of the samespecies. First, the chemicals deposited on the rub provide information on the individual identity of an animal; no two mammals produce the same scent 2. For instance, as we all know, dogs recognize each other via smell. Second,because only male deer rub, the buck 1 rub and its associated chemicals indicate the sex of the deer producing the rub. Third, older more dominant 3 bucks 4 produce more buck rubs and probably deposit more glandular 5 secretions 6 on a given rub. Thus, the presence of many well-marked rubs is indicative of older, higher-status males being in the general vicinity rather than simply being a crudemeasure of relative deer abundance in a given area. The information conveyed by the olfactorysignals on a buck rub makes it the social equivalent of some auditory signals in other deer species, such as trumpeting 8 by bull elk 9.
　　What can be inferred fromparagraph 4 about the trumpeting of bull elk?
　　○Trumpeting by higher-status bull elk signals their presence to other members of their species.
　　○Bull elk need to combine trumpeting with olfactory 7 signals to convey information about their identity.
　　○Trumpeting alerts white-tailed deer to the presence of bull elk in their vicinity.
　　○Trumpeting provides a better measure of deer presence in a given area than buck rubs do.
　　这是一道推断题，较有难度，根据题干定位后发现解题区间在原文的最后2句话，都是长难句，我们来逐一分析一下;根据trumpeting先是定位到最后一句，这个句子包含了后置定语conveyed by the olfactory signals on a buck rub,读到这里发现并不是句子重心,后面的makes it social equivalent才是句子重心，由此能感觉到作者意在做类比，非常符合推断题的解题思路哦，比较对象分别是通过olfactory (rub) 传达的信号和通过auditory(trumpeting)传达的信号，这两种信号具有相同的社会功能;
　　上一句依然包含了后置定语，being in the general vicinity ........in a given area，所以句子重心在前，讲的是rub的出现代表着周围有older, higher-status的buck
　　最后我们尝试联系一下这2句话，得出的结论是:olfactory(rub)→higher status buck
　　=auditory(trumpeting)→higher status bull elk,选择A
　　The numbers of deer have fluctuated markedly since theentry of Europeans into Puget Sound country. The early explorers and settlerstold of abundant deer in the early 1800s and yet almost in the same breath be moaned the lack of this succulent game animal. Famous explorers of the north American frontier, Lewis and Clark arrived at the mouth of the Columbia Riveron November 14, 1805, in nearly starved circumstances. They had experienced great difficulty finding game west of the Rockies and not until the second of December did they kill their first elk. To keep 40 people alive that winter,they consumed approximately 150 elk and 20 deer. And when game moved out of the lowlands in early spring, the expedition decided 10 to return east rather than face possible starvation. Later on in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Fort Vancouver became the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, deer populations continued to fluctuate. David Douglas, Scottish botanical explorer of the 1830s, found a disturbing change in the animal life around the fort during the period between his first visit in 1825 and his final contact with the fort in 1832. A recent Douglas biographer states:" The deer which once pictures quely dotted the meadows around the fort were gone in 1832, hunted to extermination 11 in order to protect the crops."
　　According to paragraph 3, how had Fort Vancouver changed by the time David Douglas returned in 1832?
　　○The fort had become the headquarters for the Hudson's Bay Company.
　　○Deer had begun populating the meadows around the fort.
　　○Deer populations near the fort had been destroyed.
　　○Crop yields in the area around the fort had decreased.
　　这是一道细节题，解题策略会相对更简单粗暴一些，根据题干1832我们定位到and his final contact with the fort in 1832，这里读一下发现并没有回答题目，那下一句应该继续再讲1832年之后的故事，由此往下看是一个长难句，出现了后置定语which once picturesquely 12 dotted the meadows around the fort,并不是句子重心，句子重心在were gone, 表示这些鹿都消失了，以此为线索可以确定包含destroyed的选项C为同义改写选项
　　The basic cultural requirements for the successful colonization 13 of the Pacific islands include the appropriate boat-building, sailing, and navigation skills to get to the islands in the first place, domesticated 14 plants and gardening skills suited to often marginal conditions, and a varied 15 inventory 16 of fishing implements 17 and techniques. It is now generally believed that these prerequisites 18 originated with peoples speaking Austronesian languages (a group of several hundredrelated languages) and began to emerge in Southeast Asia by about 5000 B.C.E.The culture of that time, based on archaeology 19 and linguistic 20 reconstruction,is assumed to have had a broad inventory of cultivated plants including taro,yarns, banana, sugarcane, breadfruit, coconut 21, sago, and rice. Just as important, the culture also possessed 22 the basic foundation for an effective maritime 23 adaptation, including outrigger canoes and a variety of fishing techniques that could be effective for overseas voyaging.
　　All of the following are mentioned inparagraph 3 as required for successful colonization of the Pacific islands EXCEPT
　　○ knowledge of various Austronesian languages
　　○ avariety of fishing techniques
　　○ navigational skills
　　○ knowledge of plant cultivation 24
　　这是一道排除题，几个正确选项在第一句话里都分别有提及，而错误选项A并非完全没有提到，它的位置在第二句话的前半个分句,这里依然出现后置定语speaking Austronesian languages,用以修饰people,而不是A选项提到的中心词knowledge,所以选A
　　■There is a danger, of course, that playmay be misinterpreted or not recognized as play by others, potentially leadingto aggression 25. This is especially true when play consists of practicing normal aggressive or predator 26 behaviors.■Thus, many species have evolved clear signalsto delineate playfulness.■Dogs, for example, will wag their tails,get down their front legs, and stick their behinds in the air to indicate “what follows is just for play.”■
　　With messages such as those, evendogsthat are strangers to each other can be playing within a few minutes
　　再看一道插入题，插入题我们一般会关注插入句中的逻辑词比如这里有even,那我们换个角度看一下，这里发现了后置定语that are strangers to each other用以修饰前面的dogs,所以插入句中提到的狗不是泛泛而指的狗哦，而是互相不认识的狗。回到原文发现最后一句话开始提到Dogs，是泛指,插入句中的dogs被后置定语限定过，是特指，特指放在泛指后面，选D
　　The raising of live stock is a major economic activity in semiarid 27 lands, where grasses are generally the dominant type of natural vegetation. The consequences of an excessive number of livestock 28 grazing in an area are the reduction of the vegetation cover and the trampling 29 and pulverization 30 of the soil. This is usually followed by the drying of the soil and accelerated erosion.
　　○Grasses are generally the dominant type of natural vegetation insemiarid lands.
　　最后这是一道段落小结题，该段落第一句话为段落主题句，同时出现了后置定语where grasses aregenerally the dominant type of natural vegetation，句子重心在前，强调家畜的饲养为主要经济活动，中心词是the raising of livestock,后面的内容也是围绕着这个词展开的，讲的是这种活动对于该地区产生的影响，不再涉及后置定语中有关grass的讨论;所以这个选项就自然排除啦。
　　关于后置定语的介绍就先到这了，那这个技能同学们都掌握了吗?学会了的话我们就尝试把它练到满级吧，相信在托福阅读中你一定用得到哦。