It is possible for students to obtain advanced degrees in English while knowing little or nothing about traditional scholarly methods. The consequences of this neglect of traditional scholarship are particularly unfortunate for the study of women writers. If the canon — the list of authors whose works are most widely taught — is ever to include more women, scholars must be well trained in historical scholarship and textual editing. Scholars who do not know how to read early manuscripts, locate rare books, establish a sequence of editions, and so on are bereft of crucial tools for revising the canon.

To address such concerns, an experimental version of the traditional scholarly methods course was designed to raise students’ consciousness about the usefulness of traditional learning for any modern critic or theorist. To minimize the artificial aspects of the conventional course, the usual procedure of assigning a large number of small problems drawn from the entire range of historical periods was abandoned, though this procedure has the obvious advantage of at least superficially familiarizing students with a wide range of reference sources. Instead students were engaged in a collective effort to do original work on a neglected eighteenth-century writer, Elizabeth Griffith, to give them an authentic experience of literary scholarship and to inspire them to take responsibility for the quality of their own work.

Griffith’s work presented a number of advantages for this particular pedagogical purpose. First, the body of extant scholarship on Griffith was so tiny that it could all be read in a day; thus students spent little time and effort mastering the literature and had a clear field for their own discoveries. Griffith’s play The platonic Wife exists in three versions, enough to provide illustrations of editorial issues but not too many for beginning students to manage. In addition, because Griffith was successful in the eighteenth century, as her continued productivity and favorable reviews demonstrate, her exclusion from the canon and virtual disappearance from literary history also helped raise issues concerning the current canon.

The range of Griffith’s work meant that each student could become the world’s leading authority on a particular Griffith text. For example, a student studying Griffith’s Wife in the Right obtained a first edition of the play and studied it for some weeks. This student was suitably shocked and outraged to find its title transformed into A wife in the Night in Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica. Such experiences, inevitable and common in working on a writer to whom so little attention has been paid, serve to vaccinate the student — I hope for a lifetime — against credulous use of reference sources.

1. The author of the text is primarily concerned with

[A] revealing a commonly ignored deficiency.

[B] proposing a return to traditional terminology.

[C] describing an attempt to correct a shortcoming.

[D] assessing the success of a new pedagogical approach.

2. It can be inferred that the author of the text expects that the experience of the student mentioned as having studied Wife in the Right would have which of the following effects?

[A] It would lead the student to disregard information found in the Bibliotheca Britannica.

[B] It would teach the student to question the accuracy of certain kinds of information sources when studying neglected authors.

[C] It would teach the student to avoid the use of reference sources in studying neglected authors.

[D] It would help the student to understand the importance of first editions in establishing the authorship of plays.

3. Which of the following best states the “particular pedagogical purpose” mentioned in lines 1-2, paragraph 3?

[A] To assist scholars in revising the canon of authors.

[B] To minimize the trivial aspects of the traditional scholarly methods course.

[C] To provide students with information about Griffith’s work.

[D] To encourage scholarly rigor in students’ own research.

4. Which of the following best describes the function of the last paragraph in relation to the text as a whole?

[A] It summarizes the benefits that students can derive from the experimental scholarly methods course.

[B] It provides additional reasons why Griffith’s work raises issues having to do with the cannot of authors.

[C] It provides an illustration of the immediate nature of the experiences students can derive from the experimental scholarly methods course.

[D] It contrasts the experience of a student in the experimental scholarly methods course with the experience of a student in the traditional course.

5. It can be inferred that the author of the text considers traditional scholarly methods courses to be

[A] irrelevant to the work of most students.

[B] inconsequential because of their narrow focus.

[C] unconcerned about the accuracy of reference sources.

[D] too wide-ranging to approximate genuine scholarly activity.

[答案与考点解析]

1. 【答案】C

【考点解析】本题是一道中心主旨题。如果抓住了本文第二段第一句与第一段和全文其它段落的关系就不难找出本题的正确答案C。考生在解题时一定要善于找出全文的中心主旨句，并且细致入微地理解中心主旨句在上下文中的作用和关系。当然考生在解题时一定要由表及里地体味和归纳中心主旨句的深层含义，例如：第二段首句中表示目的的不定式短语“address such concerns”就是正确选项C中的“attempt”。

2. 【答案】B

【考点解析】这是一道审题定位与细节推导题。考生可根据题干中的“Wife in the Right”将本题的答案信息迅速确定在本文的最后一段。又可根据题干中的“experience”一词将本题的正确答案信息具体确定在全文的最后一句。这样考生就可以寻找出本题的正确答案B，选项B中的“question the accuracy”体现了尾段最后一句的中心内容。考生在解题时应重视准确的审题定位能力。

3. 【答案】D

【考点解析】这是一道指代词与并列平行结构题型。考生在破解此题时一定要注意指代词“this”的准确含义。它的确切含义在第二段的尾句，从这句话中可得出本题的正确答案是D。考生在解题时一定要注意指代词的出现，一定要搞清指代词的具体内容。

4. 【答案】C

【考点解析】本题是一道例(举)证题型。通过本段中的“for example”以及斜体字不难发现本段是在用具体的例子来举例说明一个论点。正确选项C中的“illustration”一词体现了尾段在全文中的作用。考生在解题时一定要善于辨别抽象叙述和具体举例说明之间的关系。

5. 【答案】D

【考点解析】本题是一道归纳推导题型。根据题干中的“traditional scholarly methods courses”可迅速将本题的答案信息确定在第二段。本题的具体答案信息在第二段第一、二、三句，尤其是第二、三句。从第二段第二、三句可以“infer”(推断)出本题的正确选是D。这是一道比较难的题目，需要考生在理解第二、三句的基础上进行推导，考生在破解这类题型时应注意由表及里地对原文进行归纳和推导。

[参考译文]

学生们即使在对传统学术方法知之甚少或根本不懂的情况下也可能获得英语方面的高级学位。这种对传统学识的忽略造成的后果对有关女性作家的研究尤其不利。如果经典作品(那些作品被极广泛地用于授课的作家的名单)中想要包括更多的女性的话，学者们必须在历史研究及文章的编辑方面接受过良好的训练。学者们如果不懂得如何阅读早期手本，寻找出稀有书籍，建立版本间的次序等等，就丧失了修订经典作品的重要手段。

出于以上的考虑，一种实验性的关于学习传统学术方法的课程被设计出来，以便使学生们更加意识到传统学识对于任何现代批评家及理论家的实用性。为了使传统课程中的人为因素减到最小，通常的方法，即指派完成从整个历史时段中摘出来的大量细小问题的方法，已被放弃使用，尽管这一做法具有一个明显的优点：至少在浅层次上能使学生熟悉大范围的参考资料。相反的，学生们通过集体的努力来完成一项有关十八世纪作家伊丽莎白·格里费斯的创造性任务，以获得文学研究的真实经验并激发他们对自己工作的质量负责任的态度。

格里费斯的作品用于此次特殊的教学目的时显示了不少优点。首先，现存的关于格里费斯的学术研究内容是如此之少以至于能在一天之内被全部读完;这样学生们只要花很少的时间和力气来掌握文献，并为他们自己的发现保留了空白领域。格里费斯的剧作《柏拉图式的妻子》现存三个版本，足以提供代表编辑方面事务的例子，但又不多到使初学的学生不能应能。另外，正如她持续的创作力和受到的好评所显示的，格里费斯在十八世纪是成功的，因此她被排除在经典作品之外(事实上是在文学史上消失)这一现象也能帮助我们对现时的经典作品提出问题。

格里费斯的作品的范围意味着每一个学生都可以成为格里费斯某一篇作品的世界级领导权威。比如，一个研究格里费斯的《合法的妻子》的学生得到了该剧的第一版并对其研究了几个星期。当该学生发现在瓦特的《大英百科书目》中该标题变成了《夜晚的妻子》，他有理由感到震惊和愤怒。这样的经历，在研究一位仅被给予极少关注的作家时，是常见和不可避免的，它能为防止这一学生轻率使用参考文献起到一种如防疫疫苗般的作用，我希望它能终生有效。