SAT阅读大纲部分由3个试卷共65道选择题组成，均是选择试题。每道选择题有五项选择答案，总测试时间为70分钟。下表是阅读试题的一个得分换算表，尽管每次考试的得分表略有不同，但不会有大的变化。表中左面的一列是原始分数(R=C-W)，右面的一列为最终得分。

　　这里，C是英文Correct的缩写，它代表答对的题目数;W是英文Wrong的缩写，代表答错的多项选择题数乘以1/4后再把结果四舍五入后得到的值。

　　如果一位考生答对了65道题，错了2道题，那么他的C =65，W=1(2*1/4=0.5, 四舍五入)，所以的R=C-W=65-1=64;由上表得知该考生的SAT阅读部分的得分是满分(800分)。由此可见在SAT考试中尽管你错了题，但仍然可能得满分。

　　本节将通过如下的4部分内容使读者对SAT阅读有一个清晰的认识和基本的了解。这4部分是SAT阅读考核何种能力;SAT阅读的出题方式;SAT阅读的特点;SAT阅读的典型试题。

　　一、SAT阅读大纲考核何种能力

　　SAT阅读不是测试考生掌握了多少文学知识，也不是考核考生掌握了多少修辞技巧，它是通过语言这个媒介测试考生的综合理解和分析能力，或者更为露骨的说它是在考核考生的智商。在前面我们已经说过今天的SAT考试起源于智商考试，故直至今日SAT阅读试题仍然有智商考试的影子，它注重考核阅读速度，速记能力，分析能力，归纳能力等;而不考核文学常识，修辞方法，组造句等一般的语文内容，可以说这一考试与美国高中4年所学的语文课程没有什么直接的关联，也就是说它纯粹是能力考试而不是知识考试。这与中国高考的语文考试是大不相同的。

　　二、SAT阅读大纲的出题方式

　　在SAT阅读试卷里有三类试题。类是句子填空题，第二类是短文问答题，第三类是长文问答题。

　　1.句子填空试题

　　这类试题分布在两个试卷中，共有18道。题型是在一个完整的句子里，把一个或两个词抽出，并在抽出位置的下面画上线以示意这里需要填上一个词。题目要求考生在5组选项中(一个词或两个词)，找出答案。被抽出的词可能是名词、动词或形容词等;句子也可能是简单句、并列句或者是复合句。

　　2.短文问答题

　　这类试题存在于两个试卷中，每张卷子中有两篇短文，每篇短文有100个词左右，短文可能是各种题材的段子;两组短文共8道试题，每个短文各自独立并有各自不同的问题，问题都是围绕短文内容提问的。

　　3.长文问答题

　　这类题目是阅读部分的核心，所占比例，在3份试卷中都有长文，它可分为两种：单独的长文和对比性文章。单独的长文长达100行左右，800-900个单词，并跟有十来道问题;对比性文章是由两篇文章组成，每篇文章约有40-50行，400字左右，最后给出一些问题，一些是关于其中一篇文章的，而另一些则是关于两篇文章的对比关系的。

　　长文通常涉及的问题类型包括：本篇文章的主要观点及中心主题;在本篇文章中作者对所论述问题的态度及基本观点;判断所阅读文章的体裁形式;什么是文章中的基本事实;阅读材料的含义或暗指是什么;难词、偏词、怪词及多义词在这篇文章中的准确意思是什么等等。

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　　三、SAT阅读大纲的特点和应试技巧

　　1.句子填空题

　　由于考试时间紧迫，考生应当遵循先易后难的原则，因为SAT填空试题一般是由易到难的顺序出题，故可按题的顺序做题。对于位于后面的一些难度比较大的题型，往往很难直接将答案选出，故可大胆采取排除法，将错误答案排除，逐渐缩小选择范围，最后得出正确答案。

　　2.短文问答题

　　解这类问题时首先不要由于它们短而小看它们。正因为它们短，所以内容比较集中，这就更应该仔细地读。由于两篇文章各自独立互不影响，又没有关联到两篇文章的问题，更主要的是题目少，便于记忆，所以可以先看问题，后看文章。

　　3.长文问答题

　　对于这类题，一般是先看文章后看问题，看文章要弄清楚文章的结构、逻辑关系、作者的态度等等，还要看出文中的观点(通常文中的观点不止一个，因此要搞清楚它们之间的关系，是相互支持还是相互对立)。这种长文章涉及的范围也很广，各个学科都可能涉及到，而且专业词汇，难词偏词也不少。由于长文阅读需要较大的词汇量，且文章较长，阅读的时间又很短，所以抓住重点是关键，可能你会说把所有的内容都记住不是吗，说实话，这几乎是不可能的。

　　对于这种阅读，先看篇文章，然后回答与篇文章相关的问题，再看第二篇文章，之后回答与第二篇文章相关的问题，最后回答与两篇文章相关的问题。要牢记找答案的根据是文章里的叙述，而不是你的常识，另外选择答案中可能有几个都不错，这时你要选择其中你认为比较好的那个。

　　每一篇文章均有其主要观点或中心主题。这些题往往比较难，望考生在读文章时就应注意。常见的提问方法有：这篇文章中作者的主要目的是什么?这篇文章主要涉及什么问题?这篇文章主要建议是什么?这篇文章总体上想要回答什么问题等等。

　　四、SAT阅读大纲典型试题

　　为了让读者感受一下SAT阅读试题，下面给出了从真题中抽取出的一部分题目，并把它们按类型分成三个组。

　　1.句子填空试题

　　1. Many private universities depend heavily on -------, the wealthy individuals who support them with gifts and bequests。

　　(A) Instructors (B) administrators (C) monitors (D) accountants (E) benefactors

　　2. One of the characters in Milton Murayama’s novel is considered ------- because he deliberately defies an oppressive hierarchical society。

　　(A) rebellious (B) impulsive (C) artistic (D) industrious (E) tyrannical

　　3. Nightjars possess a camouflage perhaps unparalleled in the bird world: by day they roost hidden in shady woods, so ------- with their surroundings that they are nearly impossible to -------。

　　(A) vexed . . dislodge (B) blended . . discern

　　(C) harmonized . . interrupt (D) impatient . . distinguish

　　(E) integrated . . classify

　　4. Many economists believe that since resources are scarce and since human desires cannot all be -------, a method of ------- is needed。

　　(A) indulged . . apportionment (B) verified . . distribution

　　(C) usurped . . expropriation (D) expressed . . reparation

　　(E) anticipated . . advertising

　　2.短文阅读试题

　　Questions 5-8 are based on the following passages。

　　Passage 1

　　Line I know what your e-mail in-box looks like, and it

　　isn’t pretty: a babble of come-ons and lies from hucksters

　　and con artists. To find your real e-mail, you must wade

　　through the torrent of fraud and obscenity known politely

　　5 as “unsolicited bulk e-mail” and colloquially as “spam。”

　　In a perverse tribute to the power of the online revolution,

　　we are all suddenly getting the same mail: easy weight

　　loss, get-rich-quick schemes, etc. The crush of these messages

　　is now numbered in billions per day. “It’s becoming

　　10 a major systems and engineering and network problem,”

　　says one e-mail expert. “Spammers are gaining control of the Internet。”

　　Passage 2

　　Many people who hate spam assume that it is protected

　　as free speech. Not necessarily so. The United States

　　15 Supreme Court has previously ruled that individuals

　　may preserve a threshold of privacy. “Nothing in the

　　Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted

　　communication, whatever its merit,” wrote Chief Justice

　　Warren Burger in a 1970 decision. “We therefore category-

　　20 cally reject the argument that a vendor has a right to send

　　unwanted material into the home of another。” With regard

　　to a seemingly similar problem, the Telephone Consumer

　　Protection Act of 1991 made it illegal in the United States

　　to send unsolicited faxes; why not extend the act to include

　　25 unsolicited bulk e-mail?

　　5. The primary purpose of Passage 1 is to

　　(A) make a comparison

　　(B) dispute a hypothesis

　　(C) settle a controversy

　　(D) justify a distinction

　　(E) highlight a concern

　　6. The primary purpose of Passage 2 is to

　　(A) confirm a widely held belief

　　(B) discuss the inadequacies of a ruling

　　(C) defend a controversial technology

　　(D) analyze a widespread social problem

　　(E) lay the foundation for a course of action

　　7. What would be the most likely reaction by the author of Passage 1 to the argument cited in lines 16-21 of Passage 2 (“Nothing . . . another”) ?

　　(A) Surprise at the assumption that freedom of speech is indispensable to democracy

　　(B) Dismay at the Supreme Court’s vigorous defense of vendors’ rights

　　(C) Hope that the same reasoning would be applied to all unsolicited e-mail

　　(D) Concern for the plight of mass marketers facing substantial economic losses

　　(E) Appreciation for the political complexity of the debate about spam

　　8. Unlike the author of Passage 1, the author of Passage 2

　　(A) criticizes a practice

　　(B) offers an example

　　(C) proposes a solution

　　(D) states an opinion

　　(E) quotes an expert

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　　3.SAT阅读大纲长文阅读试题

　　下面是一篇阅读长文，由于篇幅原因只列出文章但未给出问题，作者在此只想让大家感受一下，若读者有兴趣练习的试题的话，请看其他关于SAT的书籍。

　　Passage 1 is from a 2003 book that examines the famous“I Have a Dream” speech delivered by Martin Luth King, Jr. at the historic March on Washington in August 1963. Passage 2 is from a 2000 biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. written by an African American scholar。

　　Passage 1

　　The ability of the “I Have a Dream” speech to highlight King’s early career at the expense of his later career accounts for the tone of impatience and betrayal that often appears when modern-day supporters of King’s agenda talk about the speech. Former Georgia state legislator Julian Bond said in 1986 that commemorations of King seemed to “focus almost entirely on Martin Luther King the dreamer, not on Martin King the antiwar activist, not on Martin King the challenger of the economic order, not on Martin King the opponent of apartheid, not on the complete Martin Luther King。” One King scholar has proposed a ten-year moratorium on reading or listening to the“I Have a Dream”speech, in the hopes that America will then discover the rest of King’s legacy. This proposal effectively concedes that King’s magnificent address cannot be recovered from the misuse and over quotation it has suffered since his death. But it is not clear that this is so. Even now, upon hearing the speech, one is struck by the many forms of King’s genius. Many people can still remember the first time they heard

　　“I Have a Dream,” and they tend to speak of that memory with the reverence reserved for a religious experience. At the very least, reflecting on the “I Have a Dream” speech should be an opportunity to be grateful for the astonishing transformation of America that the freedom movement wrought. In just under a decade, the civil rights movement brought down a system of segregation that stood essentially unaltered since Reconstruction. King’s dreams of an America free from racial discrimination are still some distance away, but it is astounding how far the nation has come since that hot August day in 1963. Segregation in the South has been dismantled; there are no longer “Whites Only” signs; segregationist governors do not try to prevent Black children from entering public schools. Toward the end of his life, King preached a sermon entitled “Ingratitude,” in which he called ingratitude “one of the greatest of all sins,” because the sinner “fail[s] to realize his dependence on others。” The annual Martin Luther King holiday is properly a day of national thanksgiving, a time for the nation to recognize the immense debt it owes to King and the thousands of heroes of the civil rights movement for saving the soul of America。

　　Passage 2

　　Martin Luther King was at his best when he was willing to reshape the wisdom of many of his intellectual predecessors. He ingeniously harnessed their ideas to his views to advocate sweeping social change. He believed that his early views on race failed to challenge America fundamentally. He later confessed that he had underestimated how deeply entrenched racism was in America. If Black Americans could not depend on goodwill to create social change, they had to provoke social change through bigger efforts at nonviolent direct action. This meant that Blacks and their allies had to obtain political power. They also had to try to restructure American society, solving the riddles of poverty and economic inequality. This is not the image of King that is celebrated on Martin Luther King Day. Many of King’s admirers are uncomfortable with a focus on his mature beliefs. They seek to deflect unfair attacks on King’s legacy by shrouding him in the cloth of superhuman heroism. In truth, this shroud is little more than romantic tissue. King’s image has often suffered a sad fate. His strengths have been needlessly exaggerated, his weaknesses wildly overplayed. King’s true legacy has been lost to cultural amnesia. As a nation, we have emphasized King’s aspiration to save America through inspiring words and sacrificial deeds. Time and again we replay the powerful image of King standing on a national stage in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial mouthing perhaps the most famous four words ever uttered by a Black American: “I have a dream。” For most Americans, those words capture King’s unique genius. They express his immortal longing for freedom, a longing that is familiar to every person who dares imagine a future beyond unjust laws and unfair customs. The edifying universality of those four words—who has not dreamed, and who cannot identify with people whose dreams of a better world are punished with violence?—helps to explain their durability. But those words survive, too, because they comfort folk who would rather entertain the dreams of unfree people than confront their rage and despair。

　　4.SAT阅读大纲试题答案

　　1.(E) 2.(A) 3.(B) 4.(A) 5.(E) 6.(E) 7.(C) 8.(C)