Reading skill: recognizing the organizational pattern of details
1.Space relationship
Each gments of This World was identified by its own color. According to Cherokee doctrine, east was associated with the color red, becau it was the direction of the Sun, the greatest deity of all. Red was also the color of fire, believed to be directly connected with the Sun, with blood, and therefore with life.
Finally, red was the color of success. The west was the Moon gment; it provided no warmth and was not life-giving as the Sun was. So its color was black. North was the direction of cold, and so its color was blue (sometimes purple), and it reprented trouble and defeat. South was the direction of warmth;
its color, white, was associated with peace and happiness.
Explanation: The first ntence is the topic ntence which states the main idea. And the rest ntences are supporting details which are organized in space relationship. The signal words are east, west, north and south.
2.Time quence
Orpheus had a beautiful wife, Eurydice, and her sisters, the Nymphs of the valley, living near by, accompanied them. Their life was a bright and wonderful one, with the music of Orpheus running through it like a magical thread, till a sudden and terrible thing happened. Eurydice, treading unwittingly on a rpent, was bitten in the foot, and in spite of all that Orpheus and Nymphs could do, after a few hours of suffering, she died, and her spirit fled to the Underworld, where Pluto, the king, and Perphone, the young queen, ruled over tho who had died and been carried to Hades.
Explanation: The paragraph tells readers the death of Eurydice. All the ntences are organized in time quence.
3.Addition
Airway clearance in first aid:
杰克逊吉隆坡演唱会1.Place the victim on his back and support the neck.
2.lift the neck and tilt the forehead backward, and then lift the chin upward. Do not lift or lend the
neck if you think it might be injured. Push the chin upward without moving the neck.
3.listen for breathing by placing your ear near the mouth; meanwhile, watch the chest for signs of
movement. If the person is breathing, roll him carefully onto his side.
4.if there is no sign of breathing or breathing is inadequate, open the mouth and remove any foreign
material that may interfere with resuscitation.
Explanation: In this paragraph, steps in the process of airway clearance are listed in the pattern of addition.
4. Logic Relationship
Details may be organized in certain relationship among themlves.
A.Definition:
Sometimes, a writer realizes that you may not understand the meaning of a word or a concept. He may help you by defining it.
加油英语
charge是什么意思Example:
(1)The “standard of living” of any country means the average person’s share of the goods and
rvices which the country produces. (2) A country’s standard o f living, therefore, depends first and foremost on its capacity to produce wealth. (3) “Wealth” in this n is not money, for we do not live
on money but on things that money can buy: “goods”, such as food and clothing, and “rvice”, such
as transport and entertainment.
Explanation:ntence (2) is the topic ntence. Sentence (1) is a detail, definition of “standard of
living”.
purgeB. Illustrationbas
A writer may u some pictures, figures or examples to help us understand his main idea.
Example:
(1)There is also a cyclical pattern in fashion. (2) In the 1920s in Europe and America, short
skirts became fashionable. (3) After World War II, they dropped to ankle length. (4) Then
they got shorter and shorter until the miniskirt was in fashion. (5) After a few more years,
skirts became longer again.
Explanation:Sentence (1) is the topic ntence. The following ntences are details, providing an
example.
Example:暧昧的英文
(1) The world’s forests are disappearing. (2) As much as 1/3 of the total tree cover has been lost s ince agriculture began some 10,000 years ago. (3) Tropical rain forests once covered 12% of the land of the planet, supporting at least half of the world’s species of plants and animals. (4) But there are other demands on them. (5) For example, much has been cut for timber. (6) An increasing amount of forest land has been ud for industrial purpos of for agricultural development such as crop-growing. (7) By the 1990s, less than half of the earth’s original rain forests remained, and they continued to dis appear at an alarming rate every year. (8) As a result, the world’s forests are now facing gradual extinction.
Explanation: The first ntence is the topic one. In ntence (2), (3), (7), the writer ud some
figures and an example ---- disappearance of tropical rain forests---- to explain the main idea.
C. Cau and Effect
This pattern is ud to explain why and how something happened. The purpo is to show how two orauspice
more events are related. It starts with a cau and gives its effects. Or vice versa, it may give an effect
or result and then tell what caud it.
Explanation: the same above example. Sentence (4), (5), (6) provide the reason for ntence (7).
D.Comparison and Contrast
Sometimes the writer may help you understand his main idea by showing you how two things are
alike---- comparison, or how they are different----contrast.
Example:
The size of Verne’s spacecraft and the real one were very much alike. Verne’s spacecraft was 15 fee
t
high and 9 feet across. The Apollo 11 command ship was just a bit smaller--- 10 feet, 7 inches high
and 12 feet, 10 inches across.
Verne had his spaceship blast off from Florida, only about 140 miles west of Cape Kennedy where the
three-man Apollo spacecraft was launched/ and in Verne’s story, Texas fought hard for honor of having the blast-off there. As you know, Texas was the home of Mission control. Explanation: contrast relationship
E. Repetition
The writer may help you understand their point by saying it in different words----- usually in a brief, easier-to-understand language.
Example:
(1) I wish you would discontinue constantly annoying me. (2) Plea stop calling me on the phone, writing letters to me, and waiting for me when I leave my place of work. (3) In other words, plea stop bothering me.
Explanation: The first ntence is the topic one. The cond ntence gives an example. The third ntence is repetition of the first one.
F. Conclusion
A conclusion is a theory, hypothesis, a guess, an opinion. The writer tells a probable outcome or result---- something that he thinks /guess/ opinions will happen.
Example:
(1) Tom has been studying hard in the science cour she is taking. (2) She should earn a top grade. Explanation:the cond ntence is the conclusion to the first one. It’s the writer’s opinion. Attention: Sometimes you may tend to confu conclusion with cau-effect relationship. In cau-effect relationship, something has already happened as a result of something el. While in conclusion, there is only a prediction, or a guess that it may happen.
Example:
1.Jerry has become busy in the past two weeks. As a result, he doesn’t e his friends as often as
before----- cau-effect relationship
2. Sarah just got a job in addition to her other responsibilities. You won’t get to e her as much as you ud to--- conclusion.日语在线翻译中文
Practice: Identify the detail patterns
Paragraph one
Then it began suddenly to slow down, presumably in obedience to signal. For some minutes it crawled along, then stopped; prently it began to move forward again. Another up-train pasd them, though with less vehemence than the first one. The train gathered speed again. At that moment, another train, also on a down-line, swerved inwards towards them, for a moment with almost alarming effect. For a time the two trains ran parallel, now one gaining a little, then the other. Mrs. Mc looked from her window through the windows of the parallel carriages. Most of the blinds were down, but occasionally the occupants of the carriages were visible. The other train was not ver
y full and there were many empty carriages.
Paragraph twopope francis
Cities can be frightening places. The majority of the population lives in massive tower blocks, noisy, dirty and impersonal. The n of belonging to a community tends to disappear when you live fifteen floors up. All you can e from your window is sky, or other blocks of flats. Children become
aggressive and nervous-cooped up at home all day, with nowhere to play; their mothers feel isolated from the rest of the world. Strangely enough, whereas in the past, in inhabitants of one street, all knew each other, nowadays people on the same floor in tower block don’t even say hello the each other.
Paragraph three
To improve your reading habits, you must understand the correct reading rates of a good reader. First, the good reader usually reads rapidly, of cour he doesn’t read every piece of material at the same rate. But while he is reading a newspaper or a chapter in a physical text, his reading rate is relatively fast. He has learned to read for ideas rather than single words at a time. Next, the good rea
der can recognize and understand general ideas and specific details. Last, he is able to comprehend the material with a minimum of effort and maximum of interest. Finally, the good reader has comprehended veral special skills which he can rely on to read the problems as they occur.
Paragraph four
Studies of human migration speak of push factors, which influence an individual’s decision to move from one place to another. Push factors are associated with the place of origin. A push factor can be as simple and mild a matter as difficulty in finding a suitable job, or as traumatic as war, or rver famine. Obviously, refugees who leave their homes with guns pointed at their heads are motivated almost entirely by push factors.
Paragraph five
Human beings have ud tools for a very long time. In some parts of the world, you can still find tools that people ud more than two million years ago. They made the tools by hitting one stone against another. In this way they broke off piece from one of the stones. The chips of stone were usually sharp on one side. People ud them for cutting meat and skin from dead animals, and also for making other tools out of wood. Human beings needed to u tools becau they did not have shdifficult的副词
arp teeth like other meat-eating animals, such as lions and tigers. Tools helped people to get food more easily.
Paragraph six
At the heat of women’s changed role in society has been the ri in the number of women at work, particularly married women. As technology and society permit highly effective and generally acceptable methods of family planning, there has been a decline in family size. Women as a result are involved in child-rearing for a much shorter time, and related to this, there has been a rapid increa in the number of women with young children who return to work when the children are old enough not to need constant care and attention.
Paragraph ven
The cotton gin was a machine designed to remove eds from picked cotton. Before the u of the cotton gin, it took a very long time to parate the eds from the fibers by hard hand-working, a person could only clean about a pound of cotton a day. Ginning made it possible to process the cotton crop quickly and economically, which meant that many more landowners started to plant cotton.
Paragraph eight
The extent of the disaster in an earthquake depends on many factors. If you carefully build a toy hou with an Erector t, it will still stand, no matter how much you shake the table. But if you build a toy hou with a pack of cards, a slight shake of the table will make it fall. An earthquake in Agdir, Morocco, was not strong enough to be recorded on distant instruments, but it completely destroyed the city. Many stronger earthquakes have done comparatively little damage. If a building is well constructed and built on solid ground, it will resist an earthquake. Most deaths in earthquakes have been due to faulty building construction or poor building sites. A third and very rious factor is panic. When people rush out into narrow streets, more deaths will result.
Paragraph nine
A country’s standard of living does not only depend on the wealth that is produced and consumed within its own borders, but also upon what is indirectly produced through international trade. For example, Britain’s we alth in food stuffs and other agricultural products would be much less if it had to depend only on tho grown at home. Trade makes it possible for its surplus manufactured goods to be traded abroad for the agricultural products that would otherwi be provided that other countries can be found ready to accept its manufactures.
Paragraph ten
Massive changes in all of the world’s deeply cherished sporting habits are underway. Whether it’s one of London’s parks full of peop le playing softball, and Russians taking up rugby, or the Super-bowl rivaling the British Football Cup Final as a televid spectator event in Britain, the patterns of players and spectators are changing beyond recognition. We are witnessing a globalization of our sporting culture.
