Read in 简体中文

如果你在题目与文章之间、段落与段落之间跳来跳去，阅读可能会变得一团糟。

下面是我的阅读方法（学自我的一位老师 Fiona，以及 IELTS Ready Premium）。

略读与扫读 (Skimming and Scanning)

拿到一篇文章的第一时间，先读首段和尾段，因为它们是全文中最具总结性的部分。这样你能快速把握文章的主旨。

然后读每一段的首句和尾句，它们往往是一段之中最具概括性的句子。这样你就能了解文章是以怎样的方式组织与展开的。

当你想查找与某个话题相关的内容时，这个技巧能帮你快速定位到需要的段落。

并行做题 (Parallel Answering)

每篇文章通常会配有几组不同形式的题目。它们的答案可能按行文顺序出现，也可能散落在文章各处，很难找——尤其当你发现自己不得不在题目之间来回跳转的时候。

这里有一个技巧。

逐段阅读文章：每读完一段，就尝试只用这一段回答尽可能多的题目；然后继续读下一段，用同样的方式回答剩下的题目。

这样每一段你只需要读一遍，但你必须读得仔细，不能漏掉任何信息。

如果读完所有段落后仍有题目没答上，你也会知道去哪里定位它们——至少会有一种直觉，因为每一段你都认真读过了。

这个技巧帮你省下在段落之间反复跳转、顶着一团乱麻找信息的时间。

C19 T1 P2 实战

《剑桥雅思 19》Test 1 Passage 2 是一篇关于古代地中海海盗的文章。你可以在新东方等平台找到这篇文章，这是新东方的练习链接：https://ieltscat.xdf.cn/practice/detail/read/8503/37223852

遗憾的是，出于版权考虑，我不能把原文和题目直接贴在这里，因此下文一切都用我自己的话来概括。建议打开上面的链接，对照原文阅读本节。

先浏览所有题目与文章，大致了解题型与文章结构。这篇文章共 A–G 七个段落，配 13 道题（第 14–26 题）、三种题型：

• 14–19：段落信息匹配——判断某条信息出现在哪一段，同一段落可以使用多次；
• 20–21 与 22–23：两组多选题——各从五个选项中选出两个；
• 24–26：摘要填空——每空只填一个词。

使用本博客提到的第一个技巧快速阅读一次文章，我们发现：

• 首段从「今天的人们如何想象海盗」说起，随后把时间拨回几千年前的地中海，并预告了全文的主线——海盗猖獗了上千年，古代各国都束手无策，直到罗马的利益受损，罗马才出兵将其铲除；
• 尾段讲的正是这场铲除行动是如何展开与收场的；
• 中间各段的首尾句则大致告诉我们：B 段讲海盗出现的地理与生计根源，C 段讲古代政府反过来利用海盗，D 段讲最早被记录下名字的海盗团伙（出现在古埃及的外交信件里），E 段讲古希腊人对海盗的态度，F 段讲罗马与海盗之间微妙的利益关系。

全文的骨架就此清晰：这是一篇按时间顺序讲述地中海海盗兴衰的文章——从起源、各文明的应对，一直讲到罗马终结海盗。

一般来讲，到这里大部分人就会开始拿着题目，一题一题地去文章的各个部分做匹配。但速读一次之后，你只掌握了文章的大致结构，无法 100% 敲定某些具体细节出现在哪一段。因此大部分人实际做的，是用碎片化信息（题目）去快速匹配碎片化信息（自己猜测的段落或关键词）。在这个过程中，一次性找对位置的可能性很低；同时，很多人只会读段落的某些部分，而不是精细地读完一整段——即使找对了段落，错过答案句的可能性也不小。就算真的读完了整段，也不一定是顺序读完全篇（因为题目可以乱序出），这与顺序阅读全篇有本质区别：你没有从作者的视角顺序地阅读与推理，因此你更多是在猜测哪些内容出现在哪些段落，而不是完整地理解全篇。

我们来实践一下本博客提到的技巧 2。现在你已经速读过文章，逐段精读时会大致知道自己读到了哪里。

A 段讲现代人对海盗的刻板印象（加勒比海、帆船、亡命之徒），随后指出地中海的海盗比这早了几千年，并简单预告了罗马终结海盗的结局。再把所有题目过一遍，逐题判断能否凭已读内容作答。我们发现第 17 题可以回答——它问哪一段提到「如今人们通常如何看待海盗」，A 段开头讲的正是这件事，所以 17 选 A。另外注意第 15 题，它问哪一段包含「铲除海盗的行动是如何进行的」的细节。A 段结尾确实提到罗马组织舰队消灭海盗——我模考时就在这里中了招，选了 A。但题干要的是「细节」，而 A 段只是一句带过，并没有讲行动如何组织、如何推进。先按下不答，继续往后读。

B 段解释海盗为何出现在地中海：沿海一些地区多山而贫瘠，居民靠海为生，家家有船、精于航海、熟悉海岸；日子难过时，这些人便转向海盗行当。沿岸的许多小海湾方便他们藏船与伏击；在能够远洋航行的帆船发明之前，大多数船只只能贴着海岸、沿几条固定航线行驶，满载货物的商船遇袭几乎无路可逃；而对当地水域的熟悉，也帮海盗躲开了官方舰队的报复。过一遍题目：第 19 题问哪一段提到「许多船只需要在离陆地较近的水域航行」——正是 B 段讲航线的内容，19 选 B。第 20–21 题问作者对古代地中海居民提到了哪两点，五个选项的内容恰好全部落在 B 段：他们驾驶的是自家的船（排除「用偷来的船作案」）；商船走的航线人尽皆知（排除「花钱购买航线情报」）；小海湾是用来藏身伏击的（排除「用来储藏赃物」）；剩下两个说法——「凭借对当地的熟悉躲过抓捕」与「生计更多依赖海洋而非农耕」——都能在 B 段找到依据，所以 20–21 选 B、D。精读一段，顺手解决三道题。

C 段讲古代政府会反过来利用海盗，尤其在战时——让海盗舰队打头阵，为海军开路；一些地区为海盗提供安全港，海盗则回馈当地经济。过一遍题目：第 16 题问哪一段提到「古代国家会在何种情形下利用海盗」——C 段开头一句话就给全了信息，16 选 C。

D 段讲最早留下名字的海盗团伙，记录在古埃及法老与盟友的外交信件中。信件显示有两伙海盗令法老头疼；一位邻国国王否认自己与其中一伙有牵连，并承诺惩罚任何参与海盗活动的臣民。过一遍题目：第 14 题问哪一段提到「对参与海盗活动的否认」，14 选 D。值得一提的是，单看「否认」那一句，你只能知道国王否认与某个团伙有关；这个团伙是海盗，是段落前文交代的。顺序精读的人自带完整语境；跳着找关键词的人，未必能确认这一点。

E 段讲古希腊世界与海盗的关系，与埃及很不一样——希腊人的生活处处依赖海洋，一些最负盛名的古希腊文学作品甚至公开赞美海盗的生活方式，此后几个世纪态度依旧；海盗行为是日常生活的一部分，连身居高位者也偶有参与，有记载称几位使节在公务途中顺道劫了一条商船、私吞了船上的财物。宽容不等于放任——希腊人也尝试过遏制海盗，但海盗人数太多，收效有限。过一遍题目：第 22–23 题问作者对海盗与古希腊提到了哪两点。对照选项：「一些古希腊文献明显对海盗持正面看法」，成立；「重要官员也偶尔参与海盗活动」，成立。其余选项——官方估计参与者很少（无中生有）、态度在史诗成书后不久便转变（与原文「延续数个世纪」相反）、每位公民都不能接受海盗攻打城市（原文没说）——一一排除，22–23 选 C、E。

F 段讲罗马与海盗微妙的利益关系——海盗劫掠带来源源不断的奴隶，正合罗马农业与矿业之需，于是罗马长期睁一只眼闭一只眼；但当海盗劫掠运粮船、动了罗马公民的命脉，元老院里便响起了要求惩办海盗的怒吼。罗马依旧按兵不动，海盗于是愈发胆大，甚至绑架罗马政要索取赎金——最有名的人质正是凯撒本人。过一遍题目：第 24–26 题是一段关于罗马与海盗的摘要填空，三个空全部出自 F 段，而且按行文顺序排列：被袭击的船只运的是什么（grain）、元老院要求对肇事者做什么（punishment）、海盗用被绑的官员换什么（ransom）。顺序精读至此，几乎是路过顺手填上。

G 段讲铲除行动本身——一部新法案为一位将军拨出巨款；他把整个地中海划成十三个区，每区配一支舰队与一名指挥官，肃清一区便合兵推进下一区，直至海盗绝迹；对幸存的海盗，罗马分给他们远离海洋的肥沃土地，让他们改行务农。过一遍题目：第 15 题现在可以放心作答——「行动如何进行」的细节到这里才真正展开，15 选 G；回头看，A 段那句只是引子。第 18 题问哪一段解释了「如何让一些人不再重操旧业」——正是分地务农的安排，18 选 G。

答案速览：

题号	答案
14	D
15	G
16	C
17	A
18	G
19	B
20–21	B、D
22–23	C、E
24	grain
25	punishment
26	ransom

并行做题的好处在于：你理解了文章是怎么写的、它的逻辑推理过程是怎样展开的；你在用结构化的推理与内容去匹配碎片化的信息，你的已知信息与推理链永远在稳步、结构化地扩张，你对文章拥有 comprehension。即使错过了某道题的作答，你也可以凭这种理解快速定位段落并回答——第 15 题就是最好的例子：如果只靠碎片化的关键词匹配，A 段那句引子几乎必然把你带进沟里；而顺序读完全篇的人自然知道，真正的「细节」在 G 段。

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相信你可以在自己的模考中把这些技巧用起来。

祝备考与考试顺利，日安。

Antony

Reading can be real messy if you jump between questions and articles, or from paragraph to paragraph.

Here is my way of reading (learnt from Fiona, a teacher of mine, and from IELTS Ready Premium).

Skimming and Scanning

The first moment you get an article, you read the first paragraph and the last one, as they are the most conclusive in the article. You will get a quick grasp of what the article is mainly about.

Then you read the first and the last sentence of each paragraph, as they are often the most conclusive among one paragraph. This would allow you to know in which way the article is constructed or written.

This skill allows you to quickly locate the paragraph you need when you want to find something related to a topic.

Parallel Answering

When you get an article, there would be several sets of questions in multiple forms. Their answers can appear in reading order in the article, or scattered across the passage, making them hard to find, especially when you find yourself having to jump between them.

Here’s a trick.

Read the paragraphs one by one, and try to answer as many questions as possible using only that one paragraph, then continue reading the next ones, and answer the rest of the questions as such.

This way you will only need to read each paragraph once, but you’ll have to read them carefully and not miss any information.

If you had some questions left unanswered when you finished reading all paragraphs, you will be able to know where to locate them or at least have a gut feeling of it, as you’ve carefully read all the paragraphs.

This skill saves you the time of jumping between the paragraphs and looking for information with a messy head.

C19 T1 P2 in Action

Cambridge IELTS 19, Test 1, Passage 2 is an article about pirates in the ancient Mediterranean. You can find it on platforms such as New Oriental (XDF); here is their practice link: https://ieltscat.xdf.cn/practice/detail/read/8503/37223852

It is a pity that I cannot put the article or the questions here, as that may result in copyright issues, so everything below is summarised in my own words. I suggest opening the link above and reading along with the original text.

First, browse all the questions and the passage to get a rough idea of the question types and the structure of the article. The passage has seven paragraphs, A–G, with 13 questions (14–26) in three types:

• 14–19: matching information — decide which paragraph contains a given piece of information (a paragraph may be used more than once);
• 20–21 and 22–23: two multiple-choice sets — pick two options out of five for each;
• 24–26: summary completion — one word per gap.

Skim the passage once using the first technique in this blog, and we find:

• The first paragraph opens with how people today imagine pirates, then turns the clock back thousands of years to the Mediterranean and previews the main thread of the whole article — piracy ran rampant for millennia and no ancient state could stop it, until it hurt Rome’s interests and Rome wiped it out;
• The last paragraph is exactly about how that wipe-out campaign unfolded and ended;
• The first and last sentences of the middle paragraphs roughly tell us: B is about the geographical and economic roots of piracy, C about ancient governments making use of pirates in return, D about the earliest pirate groups recorded by name (in ancient Egyptian diplomatic letters), E about the ancient Greeks’ attitude towards piracy, and F about the subtle relationship of interests between Rome and the pirates.

The skeleton of the article is now clear: it is a chronological account of the rise and fall of Mediterranean piracy — from its origins and how different civilisations dealt with it, all the way to Rome putting an end to it.

Generally speaking, this is where most people would start taking the questions one by one and matching them against various parts of the article. But after one quick read, you have only grasped the rough structure of the passage — you cannot be 100% sure which paragraph a specific detail appears in. So what most people actually do is use fragmented information (the questions) to quickly match fragmented information (paragraphs or keywords they guess at). In this process, the chance of landing in the right place in one go is low; meanwhile, many people only read parts of a paragraph instead of reading the whole paragraph closely — even if they find the right paragraph, they may well miss the answer sentence. And even when they do read whole paragraphs, they are rarely reading the passage in order (since the questions can come in any order), which is fundamentally different from reading the whole passage sequentially: you are not reading and reasoning from the author’s perspective, so you end up guessing which contents appear in which paragraphs instead of comprehending the passage as a whole.

Let’s now put technique 2 into practice. Since you have already skimmed the passage, you will roughly know where you are as you read paragraph by paragraph.

Paragraph A is about the stereotypical modern image of pirates (the Caribbean, tall ships, outlaws); it then points out that Mediterranean pirates predate all that by thousands of years, and briefly previews how Rome eventually ended piracy. Now go through all the questions and check, one by one, whether any can be answered with what we have read. We find that question 17 can — it asks which paragraph mentions how people nowadays commonly imagine pirates, which is exactly how paragraph A opens, so 17 → A. Also note question 15, which asks which paragraph contains the details of how the campaign that wiped out piracy was conducted. The end of paragraph A does mention Rome organising a fleet to destroy the pirates — and this is exactly where I got trapped in my mock test and picked A. But the question asks for details, and paragraph A mentions the campaign only in passing, saying nothing about how it was organised or executed. Hold off on this one and read on.

Paragraph B explains why piracy emerged in the Mediterranean: some coastal areas were hilly and barren, so their inhabitants lived off the sea — every family had a boat, sailed well, and knew the coastline intimately; in hard times, these men turned to piracy. The many small coves along the shore made convenient spots for hiding boats and ambushing; before ships capable of crossing open water were invented, most vessels had to hug the coast along a few fixed routes, leaving a loaded merchant ship with almost nowhere to run; and familiarity with local waters also helped the pirates dodge retaliation from state fleets. Go through the questions: question 19 asks which paragraph mentions that many ships had to keep fairly close to the shore — that is precisely the routes part of paragraph B, so 19 → B. Questions 20–21 ask which two statements the writer makes about the people living around the ancient Mediterranean, and the content of all five options happens to fall within paragraph B: they sailed their own boats (rule out “attacked with stolen ships”); the merchant routes were common knowledge (rule out “paid for intelligence about shipping routes”); the coves were for hiding and ambushing (rule out “storing loot”); the remaining two statements — that they escaped capture thanks to their knowledge of the area, and that their livelihood relied on the sea more than on farming — are both supported by paragraph B, so 20–21 → B, D. One close read of a single paragraph, three questions down.

Paragraph C is about ancient governments making use of pirates in return, especially in wartime — pirate fleets would strike first to clear the way for the navy; some regions offered pirates safe harbours, and the pirates boosted the local economy in return. Go through the questions: question 16 asks which paragraph mentions under what circumstances ancient states would turn to pirates — the opening sentence of paragraph C alone gives you everything, so 16 → C.

Paragraph D is about the earliest pirate groups recorded by name, in diplomatic letters between an Egyptian pharaoh and his allies. The letters show two pirate groups troubling the pharaoh; a neighbouring king denied having any connection with one of them and promised to punish any of his subjects involved in piracy. Go through the questions: question 14 asks which paragraph refers to someone denying involvement in piracy, so 14 → D. Worth noting: from the “denial” sentence alone, you only know the king denied a connection with a certain group; that this group were pirates is established earlier in the paragraph. Sequential close readers get the full context for free; keyword hunters may not be able to confirm it.

Paragraph E is about the ancient Greek world’s relationship with piracy, which was very different from Egypt’s — Greek life depended on the sea in almost every way, some of the most celebrated works of ancient Greek literature openly praised the pirate way of life, and that attitude persisted for centuries afterwards; piracy was part of everyday life, and even men of high rank took part occasionally — there is an account of ambassadors on state business going out of their way to seize a merchant ship and pocket what was on board. Tolerance did not mean indulgence — the Greeks did try to curb piracy, but with so many pirates around, little came of it. Go through the questions: questions 22–23 ask which two statements the writer makes about piracy and ancient Greece. Check the options: “certain ancient Greek texts clearly show piracy in a positive light” — supported; “important officials were known to take part from time to time” — supported. The rest — an official estimate that few people were involved (never mentioned), attitudes changing shortly after those epics were written (contradicted by “unchanged for centuries”), every citizen finding pirate attacks on cities unacceptable (never stated) — are all ruled out, so 22–23 → C, E.

Paragraph F is about the delicate relationship of interests between Rome and the pirates — pirate raids supplied a steady stream of slaves, exactly what Roman agriculture and mining needed, so Rome long turned a blind eye; but when pirates started raiding the grain ships that Roman citizens depended on, angry voices in the Senate demanded that the culprits be dealt with. Rome still did nothing, and the pirates grew bolder, going as far as kidnapping Roman dignitaries for ransom — the most famous hostage being Caesar himself. Go through the questions: questions 24–26 are a summary completion about Rome and the pirates, and all three gaps come from paragraph F, in reading order: what the attacked ships were carrying (grain), what the Senate demanded for those responsible (punishment), and what the pirates wanted in exchange for the captured officials (ransom). Reading sequentially, you practically fill these in as you pass by.

Paragraph G is about the campaign itself — a new law granted a general enormous funds; he divided the entire Mediterranean into thirteen districts, each with its own fleet and commander, clearing one district before joining forces to push into the next, until no pirates were left; the survivors were given fertile land far from the sea and turned to farming. Go through the questions: question 15 can now be answered with confidence — the details of how the campaign was conducted only truly unfold here, so 15 → G; in hindsight, that sentence in paragraph A was merely a preview. Question 18 asks which paragraph explains how some people were given a reason not to go back to their old trade — that is exactly the farmland arrangement, so 18 → G.

Answers at a glance:

Question	Answer
14	D
15	G
16	C
17	A
18	G
19	B
20–21	B, D
22–23	C, E
24	grain
25	punishment
26	ransom

The benefit of parallel answering is that you understand how the article is written and how its reasoning unfolds; you are matching fragmented information against structured reasoning and content, your known information and chain of inference keep expanding steadily and structurally, and you have genuine comprehension of the passage. Even if you miss the answer to a question along the way, this comprehension lets you quickly locate the right paragraph and answer it — question 15 is the best example: with fragmented keyword matching alone, that preview sentence in paragraph A will almost certainly lead you astray, while anyone who has read the whole passage in order knows the real details are in paragraph G.

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I’m sure you can try the skills out in your mock tests.

Good luck in preparing and taking the exam, have a good day,

Antony