《国家地理》杂志作为雅思阅读考试文章来源之一，是考生们在平时一定要多多参考的宝贝资料。本杂志涉及到社会、历史、世界各地的风土人情等诸多方面，不仅对于考生扩大背景知识有很大帮助，对于考生掌握阅读技巧也有很大帮助。本文小编就从该杂志中选出一篇有代表性的文章来了解一下雅思阅读新闻类文章的"倒金字塔"结构，一起来学习一下吧。
首先我们要温习一下这种“倒金字塔”结构的特征：
1. 这类文章的前三段会有一个导语段(introduction)，以简要的文句，突出最重要、最新鲜或最富有个性特点的事实，提示新闻要旨，吸引读者阅读全文的消息的开头部分。还会有主题句，也就是包含了人物、时间、地点、过程和结果等最重要信息的关键句(main idea)。
2. 接下来会根据重要性大小，介绍事件的起因、过程和影响(more facts)，这个部分常常会引用有关人士或转件的话语(quotes)以证明消息的可靠，也会补充说明一些背景材料(background)，有时甚至不惜重复之前提到的内容。
3. 在介绍完事件的重要信息之后，还会介绍一些更具体也更琐碎的事情(more detail)。这里往往只是铺陈事实，其间并没有一定的关联，因此结构显得松散，逻辑关系不紧密。
4. 最后，新闻一般不要求总结。一般会加上一两段与该消息有点关系，但是又不是很重要的信息作为结尾。
说了这么多，我们来看具体的实例吧。这是一篇发表于2014年12月2日的报道，讲的是关于英国某停车场发现理查三世的骸骨所引发的研究和讨论：
主标题 DNA Confirms: Here Lieth Richard III, Under Yon Parking Lot
副标题 The king's genes also raise some royally embarrassing questions about the legitimacy of the Tudors who ended his reign.
第一段为导语(introduction)，介绍了整个事件停车场发现的骸骨经DNA鉴定为理查三世，并用提出对亨利八世等皇室血缘的质疑，激发读者继续往下看的欲望。
Ancient bones discovered under a parking lot have been confirmed as those of the medieval king Richard III, through a DNA test that also raises questions about the legitimacy of Henry VIII and other famous English royals.
接下来两段包含了发现骸骨的整个事件过程(main idea)，包括时间、地点、进行鉴定的人员及鉴定结果，99.9994%是理查三世。
The team of genetics detectives reported Tuesday that DNA from the skeleton shows that the bones were Richard III's, with a likelihood of 99.9994 percent. This is the first genetic identification of a particular individual so long after death—527 years.
Archaeologists had peeled back a parking lot in 2012 to excavate the skeleton, which was among buried relics of the Greyfriars Friary in Leicester, England, long the reputed burial site of Richard III. (See "The Real Richard III.")
第四段开始介绍背景材料(background)理查三世这个人物，包括莎士比亚对理查三世的描述，并阐述骸骨的特征与其人物特征是相符的。
Most people know the hunched-shouldered king through Shakespeare's play Richard III, in which the maligned ruler utters such memorable lines as"Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York," and "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"
Earlier this year, a forensic study of the remains revealed that the doomed king—the last English monarch to die in combat—suffered 11 wounds at the time of his death, in a 1485 battle with the Tudors that ended England's War of the Roses.
有质疑就有论证。先说挥之不去的舆论质疑骸骨为理查三世的准确性，接着就出现莱斯特大学专家的证言(quotes)，鉴定的方法和统计数据(more facts)。
But there had been lingering questions about whether the skeleton was really that of Richard III.
"The evidence directly indicates that these are the remains of Richard III," says geneticist Turi King of the University of Leicester in the U.K., who led the team reporting the results in the journal Nature Communications. (Related: "Richard III Mania: Understanding a Kingly Obsession.")
The scientists examined DNA inherited along maternal lines, known as mitochondrial DNA, from two distantly related modern-day relatives of Richard III's sister. That DNA is a near perfect match for the maternal genes of the hunchbacked skeleton buried at the friary. What's more, the DNA was "unusual," King adds, containing stretches that don't quite match anything in registries of European genes.
A statistical analysis led by David Balding and Mark Thomas of University College London took those genetic results and calculated the chances that a man of Richard III's age with battle wounds and a curved spine could turn up at Greyfriars and not be the slain king. They conservatively estimated that chance at 6.7 million to 1.
又是证言(quotes)。
"It is surprising how many people initially argued that these skeletal remains weren't those of Richard III," says bioanthropologist Piers Mitchellof the U.K.'s University of Cambridge, who was not part of the study team. "Well, here it is."
又提了一次2012年开挖的事实，开始重复前三段的内容了。
In 2012 archaeologists peeled back a parking lot to excavate this skeleton, buried among relics of the Greyfriars Friary in Leicester, England. Photograph by University of Leicester
Risqué Royalty
故事没有那么简单，副标题所指示的亨利八世的血缘问题还没有揭晓呢。接着往下看!
However, Richard III's Y chromosome, which is inherited along the paternal lines, seems to have turned up some dirt on ancient aristocrats.
为了鉴定理查三世的真实身份，找来“他大爷”的五个男性后代检测共同的y染色体;说明此举的原因，是因为他们和理查三世一样拥有the fifth Duke of Beaufort也就是理查三世的爸爸身上遗传下来相同的y染色体;谁知，这五个人的y染色体和理查三世的完全不吻合，并且只有四个人的y染色体是和Duke吻合。
Because Richard III died without leaving any male heirs, the researchers had to trace his lineage back in time to find an ancestor of his who had inherited the same Y chromosome paternally and who had modern-day descendants. They found five men living today who are paternally descended from Richard III's great uncle, John of Gaunt, who died in 1399.
All five of those men should have inherited the same Y chromosome as Richard III through their more recent ancestor, the fifth Duke of Beaufort, who died in 1803. Thus they also should have the same Y chromosome as Richard III. Or so the researchers thought.
Yet none of the men had the same Y chromosome as Richard III, and only four of them had descended from the duke. This isn't too surprising, King says, given estimates of false-paternity rates, meaning "when someone's father is not who we think is their father."
又是证言(quotes)加证言，引出这个亲自鉴定问题并不影响骸骨属于理查三世这个结果。
The paternity problems don't shake the statistical probability that the Greyfriars skeleton belongs to Richard III, say the study authors.
接下来解释这个结果间接证明了金雀花王朝的亨利五世，也包括整个都铎王朝并没有皇室血统。幸好，当今皇室伊丽莎白女王二世继承的是另一个家族的血统。这一部分的内容没有前面段落的信息重要，但是比之前的内容更容易引发读者的兴趣。
But they say the Y chromosome finding "could be of key historical significance." False paternity in John of Gaunt's family could mean that Plantagenet kings such as Henry V had no genetic claim to their thrones. The study states, "This would also hold true, indirectly, for the entire Tudor line," including Elizabeth I and Henry VIII.
Still, the genes can't reveal exactly when the break in paternity occurred. And fortunately for today's royal-watchers, Queen Elizabeth II descended from a different family line.
Portrait of a King
故事说完了，开始聊周边了(more details)。从理查三世的y染色体在英国十分罕见，反而更像地中海血统;到这项研究没有涉及理查三世的基因健康问题，不过显示了他95%的几率拥有蓝眼睛，77%的可能性是棕色头发，这和他的画像是吻合的。两者之间，和前文都没有明显的联系，结构松散，文章进入尾声。
The genes on Richard III's Y chromosome were unusual in English families and are seen more often in the Mediterranean, King notes, though Mark Thomas cautions about ascribing geographic provenances to chromosomes or genes.
Though the study doesn't say anything about the genetic health of Richard III, who was afflicted with scoliosis, it does say there's a 95 percent chance that he had blue eyes and a 77 percent chance that he had brown hair as a child. That closely matches his appearance in a Society of Antiquaries of London portrait from the early 1500s.
最后一段又提到莎士比亚：从此莎士比亚剧要尽可能地还原真实情况了。一件无关紧要的事，安静地结束这个大新闻。
When this genetic evidence is added to all the other findings, including the shape of his back and the injuries he sustained in battle, Mitchell says, "now those performing Shakespeare's play about Richard III will have all the evidence they need to make it as authentic as possible."
不难发现，这篇文章的结构是严格按照“倒金字塔”结构来撰写的，只不过由于作者要阐述两个事件——骸骨鉴定结果和英国皇室的血缘问题，导致它在文中使用小标题区分了两部分内容，并多次more facts和quotes来说明。由此可见，但凡雅思阅读考试中遇到新闻类的文章，我们都可以尝试去找这个结构，尤其是篇幅较长的文章，可以快速找到阅读范围，锁定答案。
以上就是雅思阅读新闻类文章的"倒金字塔"结构的详细内容，可见，国家地理杂志对于考生的阅读备考有着非常大的帮助，考生要多多参考学习。
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