在托福阅读中，考生可以看到各种各样的举例，看到各种各样的例子引入方式，也因此不得不面对ETS带给我们的“例子”题目。不得不说明的是，在托福写作中大家需要用例子来论证自己的观点;在托福阅读中，作者也要有足够的例子来说明自己的看法，不然托福阅读文章也不会这么长吧!这是英语思维，也是ETS可以出题的一个方向。
来分析两个相关题目来了解一些对例子出题的题目。
例1：Even less fortunate was the extension of this type of thinking to include animals as well as plants. This resulted in the "biome," a combination of coexisting flora and fauna. Though it is true that many animals are strictly associated with certain plants, it is misleading to speak of a "spruce-moose biome," for example, because there is no internal cohesion to their association as in an organism. The spruce community is not substantially affected by either the presence or absence of moose. Indeed, there are vast areas of spruce forest without moose. The opposition to the Clementsian concept of plant ecology was initiated by Herbert Gleason, soon joined by various other ecologists. Their major point was that the distribution of a given species was controlled by the habitat requirements of that species and that therefore the vegetation types were a simple consequence of the ecologies of individual plant species.
Why does the author make the statement ,“Indeed, there are vast areas of spruce forest without moose”?
○To highlight a fact whose significance the ecologist Herbert Gleason had missed
○To propose the idea that a spruce forest is by itself a superorganism
○To emphasize that moose are not limited to a single kind of environment
○To criticize the idea of a spruce-moose biome
解析：定位句“Indeed, there are vast areas of spruce forest without moose”.意思是：实际上有很多云杉林并没有麋鹿。这句话是一个例子，例子论证的对象是本段的主旨，作者是在驳斥一个“生物群落”这样的概念。所以选项D正确。
例2：Nomadism has further consequences. It means that pastoralist societies occupy and can influence very large territories. This is particularly true of the horse pastoralism that emerged in the Inner Eurasian steppes, for this was the most mobile of all major forms of pastoralism So, it is no accident that with the appearance of pastoralist societies there appear large areas that share similar cultural, ecological, and even linguistic features. By the late fourth millennium B.C., there is already evidence of large culture zones reaching from Eastem Europe to the western borders of Mongolia. Perhaps the most striking sign of mobility is the fact that by the third millennium B.C., most pastoralists in this huge region spoke related languages ancestral to the modem Indo-European languages.
In paragraph 2, why does the author contrast pastoralists with agriculturalists?
○ To explain why pastoralism requires more land than agriculturalism to support basic needs
○ To identify some advantages that mobile societies have over immobile societies
○ To demonstrate that ecological principles that apply to pastoralism do not apply to agriculturalism
○ To argue that agriculturalism eventually developed out of pastoralism
解题：解答修辞目的题首先需根据题干回原文中定位，从而找到例子所论证的对象。例子前的一句话往往很重要，根据题干的关键词“borders of Mongolia”定位到本段第四句 “So, it is no accident that with the appearance of pastoralist societies there appear large areas that share similar cultural, ecological, and even linguistic features.(所以，随着畜牧社会的出现， 大片的具有类似的文化、生态甚至语言特征的地区的出现并非偶然现象。)”该句进一步论证了第二段的主旨句“It means that pastoralist societies occupy and can influence very large territories.(它意味着畜牧社会占据并且影响着非常大的地域。)”分析选项，可判断选项 D正确。
其实，除了以上的托福阅读修辞目的题目之外，还有其他托福阅读题型，例如推断题或是词汇题可能也会涉及到用“例子”来解题。从以上两个托福阅读修辞目的题看来，ETS喜欢通过修辞目的题来考察考生对于作者态度的判断。而且，一般情况下，修辞目的题中涉及的例子所论证的对象都和段落的主旨相关。所以建议大家要注重段落主旨的判断。
以上就是前程百利小编为考生带来的关于托福阅读中缘何ETS偏爱对“例子”出题的解读。希望大家从本文中体会到的不仅仅是托福阅读如何利用例子来解题，也要看到英语思维和英文写作中例子的重要性。预祝大家托福考试取得好成绩!
