Analysis of Key and Difficult Points in Gaokao English

Author: Xunlei (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Currently, there is a common problem in English teaching in China—too much emphasis on exercises and insufficient explanation, with even less focus on systematic knowledge. Spending days doing exercises and checking answers often leads to knowing what is right but not why it is right, and even if you know why, you may not understand the patterns of similar phenomena. Moreover, the knowledge points covered in a single test paper are limited, making it incredibly difficult to match the questions in the college entrance examination—like a blind cat catching a dead mouse. The result is that students become exhausted and achieve little. Therefore, I believe this is a misguided, inefficient learning method that should not be encouraged. In reality, as long as a solid foundation is built in basic vocabulary, grammar, sentence structures, and common usage, one can remain steady regardless of the waves. No matter what type of question appears or what tricks the test might employ, nothing can escape the grasp of the Buddha's palm. This is a fundamental, efficient approach. However, the books available in bookstores often fail to achieve this goal. Therefore, without pretending to be knowledgeable, I took advantage of my 20 years of editing middle school English publications and collecting a comprehensive collection of test papers since the college entrance examination reform to write this book, hoping to provide practical help to readers.
This book is based on the study of 20 years of college entrance examination papers and the experience accumulated from answering readers' questions over the long term. It is divided into 20 chapters, covering comprehensively the difficulties and key points in English learning for middle school students. During the writing process, the book adheres to four principles—scientificity, targeting, practicality, and comprehensiveness.
The scientificity refers to the fact that every argument and proposal is supported by authoritative works of international linguists to ensure its scientific basis and credibility. When opinions among authoritative linguists differ, the principle of choosing the better one is followed. The "better" refers to which viewpoint aligns more closely with actual language use and is more easily accepted by Chinese students. For example, regarding whether the negative word in a noun clause must be moved before verbs like think, suppose, believe when they take I as the subject and express psychological activities such as belief, speculation, or desire as the predicate, authoritative linguists hold differing views. Palmer argues that the shift is mandatory, while Jespersen, Poutsma, and others argue that it is not. Since Palmer's works were popular before the liberation, many grammar books in China, even Lin Yutang's Openings English Grammar, adopted his view, influencing the field of English for a decade. In 1982, the college entrance examination included a question like "I believe he won't come," requiring the translation "I don't think he will come," while "I think he will not come" would be marked as incorrect. However, my experience in translating United Nations documents over 17 years, with a vast collection of sentences, has overturned Palmer's argument and proven Jespersen and others' views to be correct. Therefore, this book adopts the perspective of Jespersen and others.
The targeting means that the issues discussed are specific and not vague. For instance, when discussing the usage of enough, I provided an example: "He is old enough to go to school." This is because the 1978 college entrance examination included a translation question: "He has reached the age of going to school," which is a typical Chinese-style English that native speakers would not use. In reality, the correct expression is "He is old enough to go to school." Sometimes I provide many examples, but each sentence represents a unique expression, without repetition. To avoid making the text cumbersome, it is not possible to remind the reader of every point, so the reader's discernment is key.
The practicality means that the issues discussed are not only useful for exams but also greatly beneficial for future reading, writing, and translation. In the book, I have dedicated chapters to topics like "Double Predicates," "Absolute Structures," and "Prepositional Complex Structures." These issues are either completely ignored or only briefly mentioned in books available in bookstores, yet they are ubiquitous and significantly impact reading comprehension. Therefore, I have discussed them in detail.
The comprehensiveness has two layers of meaning. First, it involves categorizing complex linguistic phenomena, analyzing them systematically, and organizing them into a coherent framework. This helps students summarize and organize their knowledge and assists teachers in preparing for final reviews. Second, it involves combining similar or identical knowledge points for comparison and expansion of knowledge, achieving the effect of learning from one example to understand many. For example, in English, there are multiple ways to express "put on" or "wear," such as put on, pull on, go on, dress, wear, have on, etc. I have grouped them together for discussion and analyzed their differences in usage. Similarly, for expressing "as soon as," there are phrases like as soon as, once, the moment, the instant, immediately, instantly, directly, no sooner…than, hardly (scarcely)…when, etc. I have also discussed them comprehensively. This expands the reader's knowledge, enhances understanding and expression skills.