我们做目的题或者主旨题的时候我们会看到选项开头会有些动词，有的读起来平平无奇，比如discuss和explore，有的读起来有明确的态度，比如contradict或者support。对这些题目里面动词的处理一般先考虑基本方向，方向跟原文不同的可以排除；方向差不多但具体意思上稍微有点区别的先不要考虑这些区别，不然容易被误导，这时候应该先考虑后面名词的区别，比如discuss two explanations和explore definitions of a concept里面名词部分有较大区别，一般这个时候答案就出来了；极少数情况下，如果名词部分区别不是很大，最后再考虑动词的程度差别，比如call into question质疑和limit限定有一定的差异。

来看一个GMAT阅读的例子。
In 1988 services moved ahead of manufacturing as the main product of the United States economy. But what is meant by "services"? Some economists define a service as something The broader, classical definition is that a service is an intangible something that cannot be touched or stored. Yet electric utilities can store energy, and computer programmers save information electronically. Thus, the classical definition is hard to sustain.

The United States government s definition is more practical: services are the residual category that includes everything that is not agriculture or industry. Under this definition, services includes activities as diverse as engineering and driving a bus. However, besides lacking a strong conceptual framework, this definition fails to recognize the distinction between service industries and service occupations. It categorizes workers based on their company s final product rather than on the actual work the employees perform. Thus, the many service workers employed by manufacturers- bookkeepers or janitors, for example-would fall under the industrial rather than the services category. Such ambiguities reveal the arbitrariness of this definition and suggest that, although practical for government purposes, it does not accurately reflect the composition of the current United States economy.

文章一开始介绍背景，表明服务业很厉害，第二句话提出问题，探讨服务业的定义。后面说了一些经济学家的定义和更宽泛的经典定义，但马上转折说这两个定义都有问题。第二段段首说美国政府定义更有操作性，这里可能会预判后面如何夸这个定义，但第三句however转折以后一顿痛斥，所以总的来说是讲了一个问题，对这个问题的三种回答，以及这些回答都各有各的问题。

The author of the passage is primarily concerned with discussing
research data underlying several definitions
arguing for the adoption of a particular definition   
exploring definitions of a concept
comparing the advantages of several definitions   
clarifying some ambiguous definitions

A答案是错的，因为只讲了几个定义但没讲到这几个定义背后的研究数据。在这里最好不要用discuss来排除，之前有同学认为只有作者一个人在这里说事情，不算讨论。这么严厉做题很容易误导自己，如果A的discuss都算有问题，C答案的explore相应地说起来也会有问题，因为可以抬杠说作者没有抽丝剥茧层层推进地去找到服务业的定义。但C恰恰是正确答案。discuss和explore，包括identify这种没有特别明确的态度的词，起码不应该是我们排除选项的原因。对方向都差不多的动词，要宽容。

B说主张采纳一个定义，这里就有明确的支持态度，不符合原文作者对几个定义的吐槽这个方向。

C正确是因为都能找到对应，且能较好概括全文。a concept对应service，definitions这个s加得就很有灵性，因为确实讲了三个。另外全文第二句就是在问service的定义，后面回答一下也比较符合全文主旨。

我们再看一个GRE阅读的例子。
A recent study shows that southern fulmars bring 40 percent more food to their chicks than do the closely related Antarctic petrels. Yet fulmar chicks are only 20 percent heavier than petrel chicks. Hence, petrel chicks appear to be more efficient at converting their food into body mass. How can this be explained? First, while both species feed their chicks via regurgitation, petrels go on longer foraging trips. These trips may allow petrels to extract more water from the food or to partially digest their stomach contents, thereby creating more energy-rich meals. Thus petrel chicks may receive more nutritious meals than fulmar chicks. Second, fulmar chicks are less well insulated than are petrel chicks and may need to allocate a higher proportion of food energy to thermoregulation rather than growth.

最近研究表明南方暴风鹱给幼鸟带的食物，比近亲南极海燕给幼鸟带的要多40%。但是暴风鹱幼鸟只比海燕幼鸟重20%。这里的转折是表示两个事实之间的冲突，不是否定前面的研究。就是按照正常情况多吃了40%，就应该也更重40%，但结果只重了20%。一般后面都会对事实之间的差异做解释。所以（Thus），海燕幼鸟似乎能更高效地把食物转化成体重。咋回事呢？首先，虽然两种鸟都是靠反刍来喂孩子，但海燕觅食路途更长。山长水远，海燕可以从食物里面提取更多水出来，或者部分消化他们胃里的东西，这样给孩子吃的能量更丰富。就是量小但营养好。所以海燕幼鸟比暴风鹱幼鸟吃的营养更棒。其次，暴风鹱幼鸟比海燕幼鸟隔热要差一些，需要花更大精力去做热量调节，没办法用来长身体。

Which of the following best describes the function of the highlighted sentence in the context of the passage as a whole ? 题目问高亮句的作用。

It evaluates a claim. 这个会有同学选是因为觉得这句话说更nutritious，不过这是对一餐饭的评价，而不是选项说的对一个观点的评价。

It identifies an implication of a conjecture. 高亮句有个明显的Thus表示在给结论/结果，所以答案选B，对应implication（影响/后果）。选项里的conjecture对应高亮句前面的may，就是作者自己也不是很确定，大概也许可能吧，纯猜。高亮句就是猜测得出的相应结果。

It reinterprets experimental results. 这是很有迷惑性的错误答案，因为前面说研究发现，这句话算是对研究发现的一种可能解释（阅读里面一般不用考虑interpret和explain的区别）。这个错在re，也就是动词的大方向，reinterpret一般用于反驳/新观点类的文章，前面有一个结果，陈述一下别人对这个结果的解读/解释，转折之后提出自己的解释叫reinterpret。这里没有别人，谈不上re。包括有的选项出现present a novel explanation，novel新的意味着文章中前面可能得有个老的。

It undermines a hypothesis.
It qualifies a theory. D和E的undermine和qualify表示否定，thus句一般不表示否定，however或者nevertheless之类的才表示否定。

一开始我们说到要先考虑大方向，再考虑名词差异，最后没办法的情况下再考虑动词的细微区别。比如我们GRE最后一次阅读课上会讲到的一个题，题目问Which of the following is NOT described in the passage?直接找的话会发现五个答案在原文都出现了，而且跟原文说的一模一样，不可能是矛盾。这时候要仔细考虑题目，题目说的是describe，要被描绘。五个答案虽然都被mentioned，但B选项里的概念在原文中只是提了一嘴，没有具体展开讲是怎样的，没有被described，所以答案是它。