例题1：

Paragraph 3: The subjects of the paintings are mostly animals. The paintings rest on bare walls, with no backdrops or environmental trappings. Perhaps, like many contemporary peoples, Upper Paleolithic men and women believed that the drawing of a human image could cause death of injury, and if that were indeed their belief, it might explain why human figures are rarely depicted in cave art. Another explanation for the focus on animals might be that these people sought to improve their luck at hunting. This theory is suggested by evidence of chips in the painted figures, perhaps made by spears thrown at the drawings. But if improving their hunting luck was the chief motivation for the paintings, it is difficult to explain why only a few show signs of having been speared. Perhaps the paintings were inspired by the need to increase the supply of animals.

According to paragraph 3, scholars explained chips in the painted figures of animals by proposing that

○Upper Paleolithic artists used marks to record the animals they had seen

○the paintings were inspired by the need to increase the supply of animals for hunting

○the artists had removed rough spots on the cave walls

○Upper Paleolithic people used the paintings to increase their luck at hunting

事实信息题主要考察的就是准确定位和同义转换的能力，所以只需要带着题干中的信息到文章定位，阅读相关的一两句话，找到同义改写，即能选出答案。但是对众多考生来说，准确定位不难，但是到底我们应该阅读定位信息的什么地方，前面还是后面，亦或是该句本身?

首先，题干中的名词：chips是解题关键，到文中定位到第七行倒数第二个单词，我们发现这句话的主语是this theory, 所以chips想要提出的理论，应该在上句话中。往前看一句，我们发现该句的主语是another explanation, 很明显这是段落的分论点二，所以答案就是这一句，画动物的理由是improve their luck at hunting, 选项D最好地表达了这个概念。

3、推断题

推断题一直都被很多学生“嫌弃”，因为它太难了，正确率总是提不上来，要不就是不知道怎么推断，要不就是过度臆想，反正就是想不通答案的来源。而今天朗阁海外考试研究中心的专家们将从代词指代的角度帮助大家解决推断题。

例题1：

Paragraph 1: When it comes to physiology, the leatherback turtle is, in some ways, more like a reptilian whale than a turtle. It swims farther into the cold of the northern and southern oceans than any other sea turtle, and it deals with the chilly waters in a way unique among reptiles.

What can be inferred about whales from paragraph 1?

○They are considered by some to be reptiles.

○Their bodies are built in a way that helps them manage extremely cold temperatures.

○They are distantly related to leatherback turtles.

○They can swim farther than leatherback turtles.

首先：题干中出现“infer”、“imply”和“indicate”表明它是推断题，顾名思义，推断题的答案文中没有明确给出，但是答案一定基于原文，一定是原文的合理推断，不能妄自联想和猜想。我们通过题干中的唯一名词“whale”定位，发现它在第二行，我们很快也发现这句话的主语是：leatherback turtle, whale只是和它有类比关系，他们很相像，因为文中出现了“the leatherback turtle is more like a reptilian whale.” 紧接着我们看到下一句：it swims farther into the cold of the northern and southern oceans, 这句话中出现代词it, 很明显指代的是上句话中：leatherback turtle, 但是turtle和whale是类比关系，所以turtle能做的事，whale也可以，所以答案和在冰冷的海水中可以游得很远有关，所以答案是B。

通过上述三个题型的讲解，我们不难发现很多托福阅读的题型的解题方法都离不开代词的指代，这就要求我们以后在阅读文章时，多问问自己这些代词的指代，加以时日的练习，我们一定能在托福阅读的题型解法上有突飞猛进的进步。