推测作者写作目的的题目往往是这样问的。

The author's main purpose in writing the passage is to

The author writes this passage to

The author in this passage in tends to

推测写作目的题和了解文章大意题有所不同，后者要知道文章讲什么，中心思想是什么。而前者要知道写文章是为了什么，达到什么目的。例如有一篇讲美国离婚问题的文章。中心思想可能是高离婚率对美国社会、家庭、当事者和孩子的影响，而写这篇文章的目的可能是要社会引起关注或要人们对离婚十分谨慎。因此，这种题比了解文章大意题更难解答，它不仅要求了解内容，还要了解作者的口气，分析作者的论述方法，这样才能推断出写作目的。例如以下短句表达了作者不同的用意。

To argue a belief，文章作者摆事实，讲道理，论证自己的观点。

To inform people of something，文章作者只介绍和传递信息，并不发表自己看法。

To illustrate the significance/importance，文章作者会从多方面阐述意义或重要性。

To warn people of certain danger，文章作者会分析该事物的后果，危害性。

To analyse the causes of something，文章作者会从间接和直接或平行几方面分析原因或因素。

To describe certain problems/phenomena，文章作者会用事实、数据、例证或生动的形象描写。

To give people a piece of advise，文章作者用祈使句较多。告诉方法、做法等。

To propose a solution，文章作者会阐明某种建议或解决方法的可行性、优点等。

例1

Most individual stockmarket investors, particularly in Asia, are speculators who want to pit their wits against the market at large. They share British entrepreneur Jim Slater's view that "a long-term investment is a short-term investment gone wrong," and look for the big,quick profits which can be made when share prices are driven up by important new information about a company's business, for instance the announce- ment of a takeover bid.

Official market-moving announcements of this kind are frequently foreshadowed by unofficial rumours. Buying or selling on the basis of such "inside" information vio- lates the rules of most stockmarkets, but is widely practised and hard to document. Sometimes a rumour may be spread deliberately for the purpose of artificially raising a share price, usually by investors who hold shares which they want to sell. This is the so-calledramp .

Speculative situations tend to produce the highest rewards, but they also carry with them the highest risk.the profits made by the first people into a ramp are only as big as the losses made by those who get in last. The merit of analysing companies be- fore plunging headlong into buying their shares is that it helps limit the "downside”of any investment--the amount of money you stand to lose if your investment goes wrong. Companies which have good saleable assets and steady cash earnings may fall periodically out of favour with the stockmarket,but they are unlikely to collapse alto-gether,and they are likely sooner or later to regain value.

This investor who bothers to verify that the company in which he is speculating is not fundamentally worthless has the reassurance that even a bad short-term buy should prove to have some long-term value.

The author in this passage intends to

A. warn people not to buy stocks

B. encourage people to go to stockmarket

C. advise people to be cautious of buying or selling stocks

D. tell people how to buy and sell stocks

这篇文章是关于买卖股票的。文章确实介绍了投资技巧，但从段到第四段的介绍中无不让人感到股票买卖的风险。段说人们热心于搞短线，通过宣布上市公司的内部重大消息，引起股票价格大跌大涨。第二段是说小道消息的作用，有时故意散布谣言，造成股价大跌大涨。第三段是说股票市场这种情况以及不正当的投机行为可能一下子带来巨大的暴利，但也具有很大的风险。所以在买之前要了解该公司的业绩，才不会输光。尤其是后一段是直接对投资者说的：The investor who bothers to veri-fy that the company in which he is speculating……has the reassurance that even a bad short-term buy should prove to have some long-term value只有核实和掌握该公司的情况，才能在做短线买卖中，获得长期投资的收益。显然按照作者的口气和论述，我们可以推断作者介绍股票市场中这种独特的投机情况，是要投资者小心谨慎。所以C项ad-vise people to be cautious of buying or selling stocks是正确的答案。

可见，注意作者的口气是推测他写作目的的关键。除此外，还要注意文章的主题大意。虽然写作目的和文章大意是两回事，但把握文章的中心思想对于推测写作目的会大有帮助。

例2

Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable occupations. Personal consultants give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants(被告). But in the executive circle, beauty can be- come a liability. While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the ex- ecutive ladder,it is harmful to a woman. Handsome male executive were perceived as having more integrity than plainer men,effort and ability were thought to account for their success. Attractive female executives were considered to have less integrity than unattractive ones; their success was attributed not to ability but to factors such as luck. All unattractive women executive were thought to have more integrity and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was attributed more to personal relationships and less to ability than was that of attractive overnight successes. Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is perceived to be more feminine(女性的)and an attractive man more masculine(男性的)than the less attractive ones. Thus, an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally masculine position appears to lack the "masculine" qualities required. This is true even in politics. "When the only clue is how he or she looks,peo- ple treat men and women differently,"says Anne Bowman,who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates. She asked 125 undergradu- ate students to rank two groups of photographs,one of men and one of women,in order of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for politi- cal offices. They were asked to rank them again,in the order they would vote for them.

The results showed that attractive males utterly defeated unattractive men, but the women who had been ranked most attractive invariably received the fewest votes.

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