我们都知道快速获取文章主旨和段落大意的最直接方法是阅读文章首段和每段首二句，但是想提高我们的阅读理解能力及做题正确率，仅仅有这些信息是不足矣的。

我们在阅读文章时会发现，作者在点明主旨后会在后面的阐述中进一步细说论据，而这些就是考题中常常涉及的细节内容，这也正是考生最头疼的地方，即在这繁杂的信息中，如何准确把握作者想要表达的重点。

我们知道雅思阅读以说明文为主，多是肯定、客观的表达方式。因此，作者在陈述重点内容时势必会用到特殊的表达方式。下面，我们就集中讲解下作者会用到哪些特殊句式。

1. 转折：转折词汇后面的内容往往是作者想要表达的重点。试想，我们在评论了别人的表现时，若说了一个“但是”，那后面的内容是否是最引起听者兴趣的地方?同理，雅思阅读中亦然。常见的转折词汇有：but、however、despite、in spite of、although、though、yet(用语句首，表示尽管、虽然之意)、while(有尽管之意，不多见，同学们应注意)等。

2. 否定：否定句在雅思阅读的说明文体中并不多见，因此，否定句、双重否定句是阐述重点内容的一个重点句式。

3. 因果：因果逻辑是雅思文章中最常见也是最重要的逻辑关系之一。因此，这是把握重要细节内容的重点之一。相关词汇有：because、so、since(表原因)、as(表原因)、lead to、cause、result in、as a result of、as a result、therefore等。

4. 强调句式：it is...that/who/why...及 What 引导的主语从句，如 what makes it bad is...，what we need is... 这样的句式本身就有强调的含义，因此作者使用这种句式时一定在重点说明某些内容。

5. 步骤：步骤的描述很多情况下也是设置考点的地方。在进行步骤描述时常会用到firstly、secondly等序数词(注意：initially是最初的意思，常同first互换);除序数词外，也会用到next、then、finally等词。同时，应注意表示步骤的词汇有process、procedure、stage等词。

6. 比较：比较也是重点内容之一，比较无非对比不同与相似，表达不同的词汇有：different、distinction、differ等;表达相似的词汇有：similarity、resemble、similar、resemblance、like(像的意思)等。另外，表达比较时，常会用到： compare、compared with、in comparison、by contrast、on contrary等。

7. 绝对性说法：因为雅思阅读的阐述方式是客观，因此一旦出现绝对性的说法，很有可能会是考点。常见的绝对性词汇有：never、only(sole、alone常与这词互换)、must、mustn’t、always等。

8. 定义式和结论性表述：所谓定义式表述就是作者在给出定义、阐述常识和某些真理时用到的表达方式;结论性表述是指作者在描述完某些项目或实验研究等后，得出的结论性东西，常用到的词汇有：therefore、conclude、in conclusion、the key for...is...等。

以上8点是作者在阐述重点内容时会用到的特殊句式，考生在平时做题及考试中可参考这些方面，帮助自己准确把握重点信息。

此外，雅思阅读还有一个“设铺垫”的特点，即作者在表达某一重点内容前会说些不重点的内容，通过与其或某些连接词来为后面的key point做伏笔，常用到的连词多是转折、递进的词汇。这一点，考生在阅读时也应注意。

我们以下面这篇文章为例

Lost for words

Many minority languages are on the danger list

In the Native American Navajo nation which sprawls across four states in the American south-west, the native language is dying. Most of its speakers are middle-age or elderly. Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Street sign, supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English. Not surprisingly, linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time.

Navajo is far from alone. Half the world’s 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations - that’s one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet’s linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. “At the moment, we are heading for about three or four languages dominating the world”, says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. “It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the lost is difficult to know.

Isolation breeds linguistic diversity as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. Only 250 language have more than a million speaker, and at least 3,000 have fewer than 2,500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. What makes a language endangered is not that the number of speakers, but how old they are. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director of the Alassk Native Language Center, in Fairblanks.

Why do people reject the language of their parent? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community find itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their culture’ he say. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old tradition.’

The change is not always voluntary. Quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in school, all to promote national unity. The former US policy of running Indian reservation in English, for example, effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene, who chairs the Linguistics Department at the University of Chicago, argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. ‘Native Americans have not lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socioeconomic pressures’ he say. ‘They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English". But are languages worth saving? At the very least, there is a loss of data for the study of languages and their evolution, which relies on comparisons between languages, both living and dead. When an unwritten and unrecorded language disappears, it is lost to science.

Language is also intimately bond up with culture, so it may be difficult to reserve one without the other. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English, they lose something' Mufwene says. ‘Moreover, the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the world’ say Pagel. There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiological changes in brain. ‘Your brain and mine are difference from the brain of someone, who speaks French, for instance’ Pagel says, and this could affect our thoughts and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’

So despite linguists’ best efforts, many languages will disappear over the next century. But a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language’ says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven, Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism’ he says. In New Zealand, classes for children have slowed the erosion of Maori and rekindled interest in the language. A similar approach in Hawaii has produce about 8000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in the past few years. In California, ‘apprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages. Volunteer 'apprentices' pair up with one of the last living speakers of Native American tongue to learn traditional skill such as basket weaving, with instruction exclusively in the endangered language. After about 300 hours of training they are generally sufficiently fluent to transmit the language to next generation. But Mufwene says that preventing a language dying out is not the same as giving it new life by using every day. ‘Preserving a language is more likely preserving fruits in a jar’ he says.

However, preservation can bring a language back from the dead. There are examples of languages that have survived in written form and then been revived by latter generations. But a written form is essential for this, so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before.

通过阅读该段，我们不难发现第三段Isolation breeds linguistic diversity这句话是典型的定义式句式，因此这是一个重要信息。该段中What makes a language endangered is not that the number of speakers, but how old they are. 这个what引导的主语从句表达“不是...而是...”，这是一个重要信号句，同学们应高度重视。

第四段中Why do people reject the language of their parent? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community find itself alongside a larger, wealthier society这是通过自问自答的方式阐述观点，这是设铺垫的一种方式，同学们应注意。

第五段中The change is not always voluntary. Quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in school, all to promote national unity. 第一句话也是一种设铺垫的方式，说明改变不都是自愿的，也就暗示着会有其他原因，紧接着下句便进行了说明。这一段中the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation.结合了否定及转折，表达“不是...而是...”，势必是重点信息句。

第七段中，So despite linguists’ best efforts, many languages will disappear over the next century. But a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. 这句话有despite和but，因此这句话一定是重点。The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language. 是定义式句式;Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism是双重否定句，因此这两句都是重点句式。

在文章当中进行了这样的分析后，我们对把握细节信息就清晰明了了许多，对于文章理解也更深入了一步。

在所有题型中，考察细节的题目居多，因此有效提取重要信息是我们在练习阅读理解时要逐渐培养出的一种能力，当我们在阅读文章时能够根据自己的判断不时眼前一亮，这说明我们距离把握出题者的出题思路就不远了，而这，也正是我们在集中训练中需要逐渐养成的一种能力。