托福的考试非常注重学生的逻辑能力。句子插入题考察的就是学生对句子之间逻辑关系的把握。一般都是在倒数第二题出现，有一定的难度。

托福的考试非常注重学生的逻辑能力。句子插入题考察的就是学生对句子之间逻辑关系的把握。一般都是在倒数第二题出现，有一定的难度。

 

 

对于句子插入题来说，首先步要能看懂插入句的意思，第二步对插入句前后的内容可以进行猜测，比如句子插入所放的位置，前面应该说什么，后面应说什么。面对一个插入句子，那么应该怎么着手呢？就像是一团很乱的线团，想要捋顺，首先要找到线头。

 

北京朗阁小编通过TPO以及近来的一些真题，发现句子插入题通常会出现以下几种特征：

 

特征一：插入句子有连接词；解题技巧：看两边

朗阁海外考试研究中心总结了托福阅读句子插入题常见的6类逻辑词

 

1）表示结果：so/ thus/ consequently/ hence/ accordingly

以真题“Origins of the Megaliths”为例

Renfrew has studied two circumscribed areas, the Scottish islands of Arran and Rousay, to examine this hypothesis more closely. ■ He found that a division of the arable land into territories, each containing one megalith, results in units that correspond in size to the individual farming communities of recent times in the same area. ■ Each unit supported between 10 and 50 people. ■ The labor needed to put up a megalith would probably be beyond the capabilities of a community this size. ■ But Renfrew argues that the cooperation of other communities could be secured by some form of recognized social incentive perhaps a period of feasting at which communal building was one of several activities.

 

插入的句子：So it might seem that megaliths could not have been used by an individual community to mark its land.

 

So 表示结果，结果是这些megaliths 有可能不是一个community在用。那么前面应该会讲导致此观点的原因。D前面“the labor needed to put up a megalith would probably be beyond the capabilities of a community this size”. 修建需要的人手可能超过了一个社区的尺寸（暗示无法完成）。D之后转折讲通过feasting方式解决。

 

有的时候插入句虽然没有明显的逻辑词，但是通过插入句的意思，还是知道前后的逻辑关系。比如以朗阁海外考试研究中心*阶段所纳入的一篇TPO “Pastoralism in ancient Inner Eurasia”这篇为例，插入句是“There is a od reason for this”。这句话就直接向我们表明了前后两个句子是因果关系。

 

2）表示并列：also/ as well as/ not only…but (also)

以真题“Water Supply in Venice”为例，

Over a period of several hundred years, Venice developed an elaborate system of cisterns and me-the gutters or pipes that carried rainwater to the cisterns and that, for a single cistern, might extend over an area of several streets. ■ Wealthy households had their own cisterns. ■ In less affluent areas of the city, cisterns were often owned and maintained by neighborhood groups. ■ In crowded parts of the city where landlords offered small house for rent, one or two cisterns were provided for each street. ■ A network of public cisterns paralleled these private and semiprivate arrangements. Every public square in the city had a cistern to serve the poorest venetians.

 

插入句：The complexity of the cistern system was social as well as physical.

 

插入句里出现了“as well as”，用来连接两个并列的成分，可以理解为“不但…而且”，它强调的是前者，后一项只是顺便提及。整句话应该理解为：蓄水池的复杂性不仅仅是physical，也是social 的。那么这句话放入句中的时候，前面讲physical 的复杂性，下文描述social社会层面的复杂性。所以应该放在A的位置，句话描述是physical层面，外观上的复杂性：管子运输雨水到蓄水池，一个管子可能绵延几个街道那么长。A之后描述了蓄水池社会层面的复杂性，不同社会层级的人对蓄水池的享用是不一样的。比如有钱人会独立拥有蓄水池，不太富裕的地区，相邻的group会共同拥有。

 

3）表示转折：but/ however/ yet/ nevertheless/ while/ indeed

 

以真题“Mexican Mural Art”为例

■ The Mexican muralist movement is undoubtedly one of the most important manifestations of twentieth-century Mexican culture. ■ Its impact elsewhere in the region, as well as in the United States and Europe, has been enormous. ■ The work of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros triggered a homegrown muralist movement in the United States in cities like New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. ■ The influence of the Mexicans on the modern Spanish painter Picasso’s first mural and almost his only major explicitly propagandist work of art—his famous Guemica of 1937—is unmistakable even though the artist himself would have derived it. In Latin America, Mexican-influenced muralism has recurred whenever artists have felt the need to make a clear, public statement in a language that has not been borrowed from outside.

 

插入句：However, its influence was not limited to Mexico itself.

 

插入句有非常明显表示转折的信号词“However”，插入句的意思是说，但是，它的影响不仅仅局限在墨西哥本身。插入的句子前面应该讲的对墨西哥的影响，后面应该讲的是对其他地方的影响。所以应该放在B的位置，后面讲到了它对其他地方也产生了影响比如美国跟欧洲。之后还具体的举了一个例子，一个作品引发了美国一些城市的壁画运动。

 

除了上述的三类逻辑词以外还有：

4）表示递进：Moreover/ furthermore/ in addition/ additionally

5）表示让步：even if/ despite/ in spite of/ regardless of

6）表示对比： relatively/ rather than

 

特征二：插入句子有pronouns（代词）；解题技巧：往前看

既然已经是代词，那么也就是说前文已经出现了相关的名词。代词主要分以下两种：

1）人称代词 they/it

2）指示代词 this/that/such/certain/the

 

以真题“Two Kinds of Lizards” 这篇为例

The body forms of sit-and-wait foragers may reflect selective pressures different from those that act on active foragers. ■ Sit-and-wait lizards are often stout bodied, short tailed, and colored to match their background. ■ Many of these species have patterns of different-colored blotches that probably obscure the outlines of the lizard's body as it rests motionless on a rock or a tree trunk. ■ Active foragers are usually slim and elongated with long tails, and they often have patterns of stripes that may produce optical illusions as they move. ■ However, one predator - avoidance mechanism, the ability to break off their tails when they are seized by predators, does not differ among lizards with different foraging modes.

 

插入的句子：Such visual effects make it harder for predators to catch these moving targets.这种视觉效果让捕食者去看到移动的*更加困难。

 

“such visual effects”，“these moving targets” 前面应该要讲到一种视觉效果以及“moving”所以答案应该放在D。与前面的“optical illusions as they move”（当他们移动的时候产生光幻觉）相对应。

 

如果2个句子中间出现the/such+名词，那么这里是不能断开的。插入句所放的位置首先可以排除这里。

 

特征三：插入句是topic sentence或者conclusion sentence；解题技巧：判断段落是总分还是分总

 

1）topic sentence：插入句会出现表示总结性的词语比如three ways，several methods

 

但对于一些题目来说，并没有明显的表示总结的信号词。但是通过句意也能判断出是主旨句。至于这种，还是需要学生有良好的阅读句子的能力。

 

以真题“Plant and Animal life of the Pacific Islands”为例，

There are both great similarities and considerable diversity in the ecosystems that evolved on the islands of Oceania in and around the Pacific Ocean. ■ The islands, such as New Zealand, that were originally parts of continents still carry some small plant and animal remnants of their earlier biota (animal and plant life), and they also have been extensively modified by evolution, adaptation, and the arrival of new species. ■ By contrast, the other islands, which emerged via geological processes such as volcanism, possessed no terrestrial life, but over long periods, winds, ocean currents, and the feet, feathers, and digestive tracts of birds brought the seeds of plants and a few species of animals. ■ Only those species with ways of spreading to these islands were able to undertake the long journeys, and the various factors at play resulted in diverse combinations of new colonists on the islands. ■ One estimate is that the distribution of plants was 75 percent by birds, 23 percent by floating, and 2 percent by wind.

 

插入句：When varied ecosystems are present, they can be explained as resulting in part from the process that formed the islands.

 

这句话的意思是：当各种不同的生态系统存在，他们可以被岛屿形成的过程所解释（这些生态系统的形成）。插入句前面应该要讲到生态系统，A空之前有Considerable diversity in the ecosystems与插入句的varied ecosystems相呼应；A空之后就开始讲两种岛屿形成的情况。插入句在这个段落里是总起的作用。

 

2）conclusion sentence：插入句会出现：In a word/ in short/ simply put/ in sum/ in general

 

以真题“Bison and Humans”为例，

■ But bison paid a price for herding. In a given area, the supply of food per individual declined along with the chances of being attacked. ■ Smaller bodies probably resulted from a decline in food availability as bison crowded together. ■ Herding changed the bison's shape as well as size. Now survival depended on the ability to crop grass, bison's main food, quickly. Shifting the head closer to the ground, reducing horn size, and growing a hump to cantilever, or support, the head's weight enabled bison to graze for long periods without strain. ■ Giant horns, which enabled males to defend territory, may also have become a liability as being able to stay close together became more valuable.

 

插入句：In sum, by forcing bison to live in herds, humans encouraged the development of a new kind of bison, the short-horn, humpbacked bison that we know today.

 

插入句里出现了in sum，说明这里一定是个总结，而不可能是次表明观点。人类鼓励了一种新的种类（short-horn, humpbacked）bison的发展。插入句的前面应该有讲到新bison的特点。所以应该放在D之前。

 

特征四：插入句是举例；解题技巧：找论点

 

以真题“Early Modern Industrialization”为例，

The supply of ods was also significantly modified. ■ Migration had long been critical for the diffusion of knowledge that spawned new trades or revived others. Now thousands of workers, and sizeable amounts of capital, moved from one region to another. ■ At the same time, new commodities appeared on the market, often broadening and deepening demand. ■ Most were inexpensive items destined for individual consumers. ■ Knitted stockings, ribbon and lace, buttons, starch, soap, vinegar brewed from beer, knives and tools, pots and ovens, and many more ods, formerly made only for local sale, now entered into channels of national or international trade. The best-known and most widely adopted new industry was printing with movable type, which spread swiftly throughout Europe after Johannes Gutenberg perfected his innovation in 1453. Despite isolated cases of resistance - the scribes’ guild (an association of book copiers) delayed printing’s introduction into Paris for twenty years, for example - more than 380 working presses had sprung up by 1480, and 1,000 (in nearly 250 towns) by 1500. Between 1453 and 1500, all the presses of Europe together turned out some 40,000 editions (known as incunabula), but from 1501 to 1600, that same quantity was produced in Lyon and Paris alone.

 

插入句：For example, during this period, international investment in Switzerland rapidly expanded after the country was flooded by skilled workers fleeing religious persecution in Italy and France.

 

“For example”，说明这句话是在举例子，*前面的观点。所以插入句所放的位置前面应该是一个论点。插入句说当瑞士大量涌入了意大利跟法国的熟练工后，对瑞士的国际投资又*扩张了。应该放在B。B之前谈到了投资跟工人。讲到了移民对知识（引起新的贸易或者复兴他人）的扩散是非常关键的。大规模的工人从一个区域移到另外一个地方。

 

利用以上特征以及解析技巧之后，当你确定插入句应放在段落的位置的时候。后一步请检查下，插入句子所放的位置是否使的前后句的逻辑关系更紧密。

 

句子插入题虽然有一定的难度，但是只是在某一段落进行考察，所以平时可以进行此题型的集中练习，找到线索，培养前后句的逻辑关系，是可以完全把此题型攻克下来的。当然前提还是学生要加强对句子的理解，如果有方法，但是如果你对句子的理解比较模糊，那么这些方法发挥的作用是很小的。平时还是要加强对句子的理解能力。