今天给大家分享一个在GRE中看起来很不起眼、但是很多同学一不留神就会被坑的考点。这个考点就是：人称指代。
“人称指代”看起来是个基础的简单语法问题。但，这里面大有讲究。
很多同学不能很好的区分“特指”和“泛指”从而掉进了不少题目的陷阱之中。
我们先来做一篇机经题，测试一下你是否有这个问题：
Astronomers who study planet formation once believed that comets—because they remain mostly in the distant Oort cloud, where temperatures are close to absolute zero—must be pristine relics of the material that formed the outer planets. The conceptual shift away from seeing comets as pristine relics began in the 1970s, when laboratory simulations revealed there was sufficient ultraviolet radiation reaching comets to darken their surfaces and there were sufficient cosmic rays to alter chemical bonds or even molecular structure near the surface. Nevertheless, astronomers still believed that when a comet approached the Sun—where they could study it—the Sun’s intense heat would remove the corrupted surface layer, exposing the interior. About the same time, though, scientists realized comets might contain decaying radioactive isotopes that could have warmed cometary interiors to temperatures that caused the interiors to evolve.
Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
According to the passage, astronomers recognize which of the following as being liable to cause changes to comets?
A. cosmic rays
B. radioactive decay
C. ultraviolet radiation
答案
点击下方空白处获得答案
ABC
这道题非常多同学会选AC，排除掉B。对了答案之后就很费解：
radioactive decay不是最后“scientist”提到的嘛？这个题问astronomers为啥还能选呢？我们做题不是应该关注视角嘛？
首先，这道题其实问的是事实（题干中说的是astronomers “recognize”），recognize是咱们说的“叙实类动词”。AC选项是第二句实验“reveal”出来的，是事实。B选项是最后一句scientists “realized”的内容，还是事实。recognize、reveal、realize都是咱们课上总结过的“叙实类动词”。
其次，就是我们今天主要想讲的“人称指代”问题。
这篇文章其实全文只有“一波人”，文章是在描述“整个科学界关于某个问题看法的演变”；而不是两拨人在打架。而很多同学在这篇文章读出了两拨视角：astronomers和scientists，不能理解这为什么能是一波人呢？
这就是我们在文章开头说的“泛指”问题。“天文学家”肯定是“科学家”，再加上“astronomers”和“scientists”这都是“泛指”，所以文章讲的是整个学术界对这个问题看法的演变，而不是不同人之间的争议。
除非文章说“some astronomers”和“other scientists”那我们才可以理解成是出现了两拨不同的立场/视角。
再来一道机经题巩固一下这个知识点：
Some historians have recently challenged the “party period paradigm,” the view, advanced by McCormick and others, that political parties—especially the two major parties—in the United States between the years 1835 and 1900 evoked extraordinary loyalty from voters and dominated political life. Voss-Hubbard cites the frequency of third-party eruptions during the period as evidence of popular antipathy to the two-party regime. He correctly credits third parties with helping generate the nineteenth-century’s historically high rates of voter turnout by forcing major parties to bolster supporters’ allegiance, lest minor parties siphon off their votes, and with pushing policy demands that the major parties ignored. Formisano stresses the pervasive record of nonpartisan and antiparty governance at the local level, and women’s frequent participation in nineteenth-century public life, prior to their enfranchisement, in nonpartisan and antiparty ways as evidence of the limitations of the party period paradigm. Yet McCormick would deny that the existence of antiparty sentiment during the period undermines the paradigm, since he has always acknowledged the residual strength of such sentiment during the nineteenth century. In any case, the strength of the paradigm is its comparative thrust: the contrast it draws between the period in question and later political eras.
Select the sentence in the passage that describes how a historian might reply to attempts to call his theory into question.
答案
点击下方空白处获得答案
Yet ...century.
很多同学解这道题的思路是：关注到题干要求我们选的是“historian”的观点。这篇文章“historians”是质疑McCormick观点的。所以最终选的句子都是对于McCormick观点进行质疑的句子。
这个思路恰好完全反了。
这道题的关键根本不在historian这个词上，因为题目说的是“a” historian。这依旧是一个泛指，文章中的这些学者都可以是“a” historian。文章描述的是“some” historians 质疑 McCormick 这个historian。
这道题的关键在于我们要选择“reply to attempts to call his theory into question”，这个逻辑关系的要求才是重点：一个人面对他人的质疑会进行的回应。首先，文章中被质疑的是McCormick，所以我们恰恰要选择的是McCormick的立场，他会如何回应前文的那些质疑。
有了这个思路之后，答案就明了了：Yet McCormick would deny that…这是 McCormick 对于前文那些质疑的回应。
通过今天的分享主要是想告诉同学们要能分别“特指”和“泛指”；在处理一些“泛指”的时候不要太僵化。