写作用意题

　　这类题是针对文章某些内容的作用进行的提问，也就是题干中问到的这个具体事物在文章中出现时作者的用意是什么?所有的GRE文章都是议论文，作者提到具体的事物大体上有几种关系：支持、证明、解释或反对某观点，也就是说具体的事物总是和观点发生联系的。通常情况，给定行数题和写作用意题是混合出现的。

　　下面我们看一个例子：

　　In the early 1950’s, historians who studied pre-industrial Europe (which we may define here as Europe in the period from roughly 1300 to 1800) began, for the first time in large numbers, to investigate more of the pre-industrial European population than the 2 or 3 percent who comprised the political and social elite: the kings, generals, judges, nobles, bishops, and local magnates who had hitherto usually filled history books. ……

　　One way out of this dilemma was to run to the records of legal courts, for here the voices of the non-elite can most often be heard, as witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants. These documents have acted as “a point of entry into the mental world of the poor.” Historians such as Le Roy Ladurie have used the documents to extract case histories, which have illuminated the attitudes of different social group (these attitudes include, but are not confined to, attitudes toward crime and the law) and have revealed how the authorities administered justice. ……

　　……

　　The author mentions Le Roy Ladurie (Line 30)in order to _____

　　(A) give an example of a historian who has made one kind of use of court records

　　(B) cite a historian who has based case histories on the birth, marriage, and death records of the non-elite

　　(C) identify the author of the quotation cited in the previous sentence

　　(D) gain authoritative support for the view that the case history approach is the most fruitful approach to court records

　　(E) point out the first historian to realize the value of court records in illuminating the beliefs and values of the non-elite

　　分析：

　　这道题就属于典型的写作用意型, 同时又给出了指定的行数。Le Roy Ladurie 出现在文章的第二段，题目中已经明确给出行数(Line 30), 这样，通过这个信息，我们可以迅速的回到原文找到相关信息。Le Roy Ladurie很明显是作者举的一个例子，但是举这个例子的作用是什么?这个问题就要结合这段的内容去分析，这段的开头说“One way out of this dilemma was to run to the records of legal courts”，根据这句话我们可以知道，Le Roy Ladurie的出现应该是研究法庭记录的一个例子。所以，这道题正确选项是A. 当然，选项如果写成 illustrate that these documents have acted as “a point of entry into the mental world of the poor” 也是可以的。