首段是全文最重要的一段，因为它不仅很大程度决定了文章的结构类型，而且还常常是TS所在段落，是作者阐述观点的段落，以前有观点说，首段全部要认真读，我觉得这是比较笼统的说法，有相当一部分文章首段很精炼，除了观点之外没有多余的话，这样的短小首段的确应该字字句句都斟酌，但是的确有很多文章首段有大段的话，都读了有点浪费时间，最好有所取舍，我大致对no.4-6比较典型的这些首段分了一下类，罗列如下，大家仔细题会一下，也许对于提高阅读速度，抓住文章重点有所帮助。
另外，第五点没有合适的文章，我暂且取了国内题的一段做为例子，大家不妨一看。
我提个建议，有时间的可以按照一试，我想对于文章脉络的把握和作者起始的思路的理解会有所帮助吧。就是对照我的这个总结，吧no.4-6的阅读文章的首段都抽出来分析一下，看看是属于短小精悍需要字斟句酌呢？还是可以套用在下面的读法里面的首段，我只是抛砖引玉，肯定总结的还有偏差，大家可以跟贴补充，或者有什么新的发现和心得，大家一起分享，共同提高:)一．观点已然论述清晰，支持它所引用的细节内容可以略读
例1． P5 短第一段
By the time the American colonists took up arms against Great Britain inorder to secure their independence, the institution of Black slavery wasdeeply entrenched. But the contradiction inherent in this situation was,for many, a source of constant embarrassment. It always appeared a mostiniquitous scheme to me, Abigail Adams wrote her husband in 1774, tofight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those whohave as good a right to freedom as we have.
例2． P236短第一段(国内)
Analyzing the physics of dance can add fundamentally to a dancer's skill.Although dancers seldom see themselves totally in physical terms-as bodymass moving through space under the influence of well-known forces andobeying physical laws-neither can they afford to ignore the physics ofmovement. For example, no matter how much a dancer wishes to leap off thefloor and then start turning, the law of conservation of angular momentumabsolutely prevents such a movement.
二．一定要关注however，but，那才是作者真正想要说的
例2．P24长第一段
The evolution of intelligence among early large mammals of the grasslandswas due in great measure to the interaction between two ecologicallysynchronized groups of these animals, the hunting carnivores and theherbivores that they hunted. The interaction resulting from the differencesbetween predator and prey led to a general improvement in brain functions;
however, certain components of intelligence were improved far more thanothers.
例3．P33长第一段
I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its mostintense. Virginia Woolf's provocative statement about her intentions inwriting Mrs. Dalloway has regularly been ignored by the critics, since ithighlights an aspect of her literary interests very different from thetraditional picture of the poetic novelist concerned with examiningstates of reverie and vision and with following the intricate pathways ofindividual consciousness. But Virginia Woolf was a realistic as well as apoetic novelist, a satirist and social critic as well as a visionary:literary critics' cavalier dismissal of Woolf's social vision will notwithstand scrutiny.
三．旧观点的例子，论证略读
例4：P44长第一段
It has long been known that the rate of oxidative metabolism (the processthat uses oxygen to convert food into energy) in any animal has a profoundeffect on its living patterns. The high metabolic rate of small animals,for example, gives them sustained power and activity per unit of weight,but at the cost of requiring constant consumption of food and water. Verylarge animals, with their relatively low metabolic rates, can survive wellon a sporadic food supply, but can generate little metabolic energy pergram of body weight. If only oxidative metabolic rate is considered,therefore, one might assume that smaller, more active, animals could preyon larger ones, at least if they attacked in groups. Perhaps they could ifit were not for anaerobic glycolysis, the great equalizer.
四．已知作者观点以后，剩下的内容当第二段来读例5：P67长第一段