回顾托福阅读的所有题型，其中有2种题型占据的比例最高----“词汇题”和“事实信息题”，前者每一场考试大约考察10-12题左右，而后者大约也会考察12题左右。因此，从每一场考试的39-42题总量上来看，这两种题型就占据了半壁江山。从难度系数上来看事实信息题的难度明显高于词汇题。那么，今天笔者打算简单谈一谈该题型的解决方法。
1. 提问方式：
l According to paragraph… which of the following statements is true of / concerned with / related to X?
例：According to paragraph 1, what was true of the Sahara region around 6,000 B.C.? （TPO 28 Early Saharan Pastoralists）
l According to paragraph… why / how / what….?
例：According to paragraph 1, why is play difficult to define? （TPO 30 Role of Play in Development）
分析：通过以上两种不同提问方式可以总结出该题型有以下几个特点：
1). 该题型是就某段话当中的某个细节信息（即提问方式1中的X）进行提问。
2). 该题型可以围绕该细节信息的不同方面进行提问，通过特殊疑问词which; what; why; how可以看出。
3). 由于题干中未出现infer; suggest; indicate等字样，所以该题型旨在考察文本信息的字面含义，无需考生进行文本的隐含意推理。
2. 解题步骤：
Step 1: 读题干，找出定位词
注意：如果是提问方式1, 那么定位词则是位于介词of/ with/ to后面的信息。
如果是提问方式2, 那么定位词一般是名词，并且是非主题性的名词（当然定位词不一定只能找一个，一般可以找2到3个，因为定位词越多相对定位的位置也会越精确。）
例：
l According to paragraph 2, which of the following presents a particular challenge to researchers who study play behavior in animals？(TPO 30 Role of Play in Development)
分析：通过提问方式类似于第1种提问方式，其实题干可以改写成which of the following statements is true of the challenge to researchers who… 因此，定位词应该是位于介词of后面的challenge to researchers。至于后面的play behavior就不需要了，因为它属于通篇的主题词。
l According to paragraph 4, how did the Catholic Church react to the introduction of mechanical clocks? (TPO 30 The Invention of Mechanical Clock)
分析：通过提问方式属于第2种提问方式，因此考生们应该在题干中找出名词部分，考生们可以看到两组名词：Catholic Church和Mechanical Clocks, 并且这两组词都是我们所需要的定位词。
l Paragraph 5 answers which of the following questions about mechanical clocks. (TPO 30 The Invention of Mechanical Clock)
分析：通过题干找出题干中唯一疑似的定位词组Mechanical Clocks, 但是却发现整篇文章都在讨论Mechanical Clocks。这种类型的提问方式是考生们最怕看到的，因为定位词无效。此刻建议考生们可以反过来先读选项，然后根据选项中的定位词回读段落寻找答案。
Step 2: 通过题干中定位词回原文进行定位。
注意：在定位的过程中考生们可能会遇到以下2个问题：
问题1：定位词在原文中可能是非原文原词（如果是专有名词一般在原文中就是原文原词，但如果是普通名词则有可能是非原文原词）。
例1：定位词为原文原词的情况
Paragraph 1: Evolutionary biologists believe that speciation, the formation of a new species, often begins when some kind of physical barrier arises and divides a population of a single species into separate subpopulations. Physical separation between subpopulations promotes the formation of new species because once the members of one subpopulation can no longer mate with members of another subpopulation, they cannot exchange variant genes that arise in one of the subpopulations. In the absences of gene flow between the subpopulations, genetic differences between the groups begin to accumulate. Eventually the subpopulations become so genetically distinct that they cannot interbreed even if the physical barriers between them were removed. At this point the subpopulations have evolved into distinct species. This route to speciation is known as allopatry (“alio-” means “different”，and “patria” means “homeland”).（TPO 31 Speciation in Geographically Isolated Populations）
Q: According to paragraph 1, allopatric speciation involves which of the following?
分析：此题干中的定位词为allopatric speciation, 为专有名词，在原文中为原文原词，即最后一句话为定位句。
例2：定位词为非原文原词的情况
Paragraph 2: Play appears to be a developmental characteristic of animals with fairly sophisticated nervous systems, mainly birds and mammals. Play has been studied most extensively in primates and canids (dogs). Exactly why animals play is still a matter debated in the research literature, and the reasons may not be the same for every species that plays. Determining the functions of play is difficult because the functions may be long-term, with beneficial effects not showing up until the animal's adulthood. （TPO 30 Role of Play in Development）
According to paragraph 2, which of the following presents a particular challenge to researchers who study play behavior in animals?
O The delay between activities and the benefits the animal derives from them.
O The difficulty in determining which animal species play and which do not.
O The fact that for most animals, there is no clear transition from youth to full adulthood.
O The lack of research on the play behavior of animals other than canids and primates.
分析：此题干中的定位词为challenge & researchers, 在原文中考生们无法找到这两个定位词，但是可以找到challenge的同义替换形式difficult, 因此该句即是我们所需要的定位句。
问题2：定位词在原文中出现不止一次。
Paragraph 7: Occasionally, a sequence of fossil-rich layers of rock permits a comprehensive look at one type of organism over a long period of time. For example, Peter Sheldon' s studies of trilobites, a now extinct marine animal with a segmented body, offer a detailed glimpse into three million years of evolution in one marine environment. In that study, each of eight different trilobite species was observed to undergo a gradual change in the number of segments --- typically an increase of one or two segments over the whole time interval. No significant discontinuous were observed, leading Sheldon to conclude that environmental conditions were quite stable during the period he examined. （TPO 30 The Pace of Evolutionary Change）
According to paragraph 7, Peter Sheldon’s studies demonstrated which of the following about trilobites?
O They underwent gradual change over a long time period
O They experienced a number of discontinuous transitions during their history
O They remained unchanged during a long period of environmental stability
O They evolved in ways that cannot be counted for by either of the two competing theories.
分析：通过题干找出定位词Peter Sheldon & trilobites, 然后回读原文进行定位，考生们会发现这两组定位词在原文中分别出现2次。因此，考生们需要定位的范围变大，难度由此也加大了。这种类型的事实信息题是考生们在考场上最不愿意看到的一种，但是很不幸的是由最新的几套TPO中的例题显示这种类型的题目正在变多，所以朗阁海外考试研究中心的老师请各位考生平时在练习时加大这种类型的考题的练习。
Step 3: 比较定位句与选项的内容，选出语义最接近的选项。
注意：1). 考生们所看到的定位句可能是一个非常长的句子，而选项相对比较简短，所以考生们一定要学会从长难句中截取你所需要的能回答问题的部分。简单点说就是比如题干中问你why….；那么，此时考生们在分析原文定位句时应该重点看because这种能够解释的部分。
2). 考生们在比较定位句与选项时切忌不能随意推理，只需要把握文本的字面意思即可。
例1：
Paragraph 3: To what extent competition determines the composition of a community and the density of particular species has been the source of considerable controversy. The problem is that competition ordinarily cannot be observed directly but must be inferred from the spread or increase of one species and the concurrent reduction or disappearance of another species. The Russian biologist G. F. Gause performed numerous two-species experiments in the laboratory, in which one of the species became extinct when only a single kind of resource was available. On the basis of these experiments and of field observations, the so-called law of competitive exclusion was formulated, according to which no two species can occupy the same niche. Numerous seeming exceptions to this law have since been found, but they can usually be explained as cases in which the two species, even though competing for a major joint resource, did not really occupy exactly the same niche. （TPO 29 Competition）
Paragraph 3 supports the idea that Gause’s experiments were important because they
O provided a situation in which competition could be removed from the interaction between two species
O showed that previous ideas about the extent to which competition determines the composition of a community were completely mistaken
O helped establish that competition will remove all but one species from any given ecological niche
O offered evidence that competition between species is minimal when there is an overabundance of a single food source
解题步骤：
1). 读题干，找出定位词Gause’s experiments, 然后把握题目问的内容是有关于G的实验的importance。
2). 通过定位词回到原文进行定位，位于第三句话。但是第三句只提到了定位词之一，接下来的第四句中提到了由此形成了一个law, 可以对应题干中想问的importance。
3). 第3句和第4句两句定位句的大意为“当只有一种食物来源被提供时，两种物种中的一种会消亡。参照这些实验和观察就形成了竞争互斥规律----没有哪两种物种可以占据同样的生态圈”，接下来浏览四个选项，发现C选项大意吻合----确定了竞争将会移除其他所有的物种在任何一个生态圈里面。
例2：
As railroad lines fanned out from Chicago, farmers began to acquire open prairie land in Illinois and then Iowa, putting the fertile, deep black soil into production. Commercial agriculture transformed this remarkable treeless environment. To settlers accustomed to eastern woodlands, the thousands of square miles of tall grass were an awesome sight. Indian grass, Canada wild rye, and native big bluestem all grew higher than a person. Because eastern plows could not penetrate the densely tangled roots of prairie grass, the earliest settlers erected farms along the boundary separating the forest from the prairie. In 1837, however, John Deere patented a sharp-cutting steel plow that sliced through the sod without soil sticking to the blade. Cyrus McCormick refined a mechanical reaper that harvested fourteen times more wheat with the same amount of labor. By the 1850s McCormick was selling 1,000 reapers a year and could not keep up with demand, while Deere turned out 10,000 plows annually. (TPO 33 Railroads and Commercial Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century United States)
According to paragraph 5, the first settlers generally did not farm open prairie land because
A. they could not plow it effectively with the tools that were available.
B. prairie land was usually very expensive to buy.
C. the soil along boundaries between the forest and the prairie was more fertile than the soil of the open prairie.
D. the railroad lines had not yet reached the open prairie when the first settlers arrived.
解题步骤：
1). 读题干，找出定位词settlers & open prairie land, 并且抓住题干问的重点是because
2). 根据定位词定位到第一句和第三句这样的语义群，这样的语义群可以给我们提供一个大范围定位，然后接下来考生们在第四句里看到了because, 所以第四句就是我们需要的精确定位点。
3). 定位句的语义大约为“因为东部的耕种工具无法穿透这里的根部缠结在一起的草，因此，早期的定居者们将农场建立在了远离草原的边界地区。”接下来浏览四个选项，只有A选项提到了因为耕作工具的原因，所以选择A选项。
3. 总结：
1). 此种题型必须要先阅读题干，摸清题干所问的具体内容，然后再读文章进行定位
2). 此种题型既可以只考察某一个特定的定位句理解；同时也可以考察2-3个定位句范围的意群理解。但无论怎样，考生绝对不是漫无目的地搜索，而是根据题干有目的性地寻找答案。
