我在上托福课的时候发现这样一种现象——很多学生都有“GRE拖延症”——因为担心基础太差畏惧GRE 考试，拖到临近申请才开始动手，而因为进入考试规划太迟，最后只能在“没时间了”的恐惧中草草收场，得到一个比较遗憾的分数。我就觉得很惋惜如果这些同学能在托福备考的过程中就渗透 GRE 考试所需能力，有的放矢的地安排备考，可能就会减少很多遗憾。

相信大家都有打疫苗的经历，经历满血病毒前，先打个疫苗，有了对抗灭活病毒的经验，与真正病毒在正面战场交锋的时候就能立于不败之地。虽然 TOEFL 考试是一个 Test of English 的考试，即测试英语语言能力的考试。而 GRE 考试是一个 Test in English 的考试，即以英语为载体的考试，但是两者所考察的基础逻辑却有很多共通之处，与打疫苗和感染真实病毒的关系颇为相似。相对于 TOEFL 考试，GRE 考试只不过是一个逻辑密度更高的加强版本。在托福备考中有意进行相关训练，自然就不惧 GRE 那点升级，学习曲线也就没那么陡峭了，极大程度的降低 GRE 考试的备考痛苦，快速获取目标分数。那么托福和 GRE 考试到底有哪些能力共性，我们来看下面的例子。

until是同学们初中就学过的一个基础词汇，但在文章逻辑中意义却并不基础。首先我们要明确 until 的词义，是“在某个时间点之前一直做某个动作或保持某种状态”这样一个含义。很多同学记得的意思是什么？是“直到”或者“直到…才”对不对？但实际上 until 的本意，是“在某时间点…之前一直保持某动作或状态”，比如 I didn’t receive your letter until yesterday. 就是“我在昨天之前一直保持没有收到你信的状态”的意思。在阅读中，我们可以简单理解为 before，即在…之前。

郭德纲在相声《我这一辈子》中用过这么一个包袱，他收到家里的来信，信上说“家里一切都好，你放心，这周下了两场雨，一场三天的，一场四天的”于谦紧接着就跟上一句“这不就下了一礼拜么”。为什么这里会是笑点？因为在人们的通识里，如果是两场雨，它们在时间轴上应该被拆开，怎么拆？中间必须夹着“没下雨”这个反差状态。而相声中的把一周分成三天和四天，但是拆分的时间点前后都是“下雨”，没有反差去形成转折，与人们的通识不符，就形成笑点了。

所以在逻辑层面上，until 这个“在…之前”的含义还有一个语义暗示——即时间轴的拆分示转折，也就是在昨天这个时间点前后，状态从没收到信转变成收到了信。虽然语句只描述了昨天之前的状况，但是一个 until 我们就可以判断出之后的状况。

总结一下，until 有两点需要注意：

1. 意思是“在某时间点…之前一直保持某动作或状态”

2. 在时间点前后状态转折

我们在了解了这一点之后来看两道分别来自托福和 GRE 的题目：

【Paragraph 1】It was not until the Cambrian period, beginning about 600 million years ago, that a great proliferation of macroscopic species occurred on Earth and produced a fossil record that allows us to track the rise and fall of biodiversity. Since the Cambrian period, biodiversity has generally risen, but there have been some notable exceptions. Biodiversity collapsed dramatically during at least five periods because of mass extinctions around the globe. The five major mass extinctions receive most of the attention, but they are only one end of a spectrum of extinction events. Collectively, more species went extinct during smaller events that were less dramatic but more frequent. The best known of the five major extinction events, the one that saw the demise of the dinosaurs, is the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction.(TPO33 Extinction Episodes of the Past)

2. Paragraph 1 supports which of the following statements about life on Earth before the Cambrian period?

A. Biodiversity levels were steady, as indicated by the fossil record.

B. Levels of biodiversity could not be tracked.

C. The most dramatic extinction episode occurred.

D. Few microscopic10 species existed.

我们看到这道题目的题干问到第一段支持了以下哪个有关在寒武纪之前的地球生命的描述，对应到文段的第一句 It was not until the Cambrian period, beginning about 600 million years ago, that a great proliferation of macroscopic species occurred on Earth and produced a fossil record that allows us to track the rise and fall of biodiversity. 根据我们刚刚所讲，until 在某时间点…之前一直保持某动作或状态，这句话即“在寒武纪开始之前，macroscopic species 在地球上都是没有兴起并且产生不了可以让我们 track biodiversity 兴衰的化石记录的状态。因此可以轻松选择出 B 选项。

A divide between aesthetic and technical considerations has played a crucial role in mapmaking and cartographic scholarship. Since nineteenth century cartographers, for instance, understood themselves as technicians who did not care about visual effects, while others saw themselves as landscape painters. That dichotomy structured the discipline of the history of cartography. Until the 1980s, in what Blakemore and Harley called “the Old is Beautiful Paradigm,” scholars largely focused on maps made before 1800, marveling at their beauty and sometimes regretting the decline of the pre-technical age. Early mapmaking was considered art while modern cartography was located within the realm of engineering utility. Alpers, however, has argued that this boundary would have puzzled mapmakers in the seventeenth century, because they considered themselves to be visual engineers. (新东方GRE 佛脚备考阅读分册vol1)

2. It can be inferred from the passage that, beginning in the 1980s, historians of cartography

A. placed greater emphasis on the beauty of maps made after 1800

B. expanded their range of study to include more material created after 1800

C. grew more sensitive to the way mapmakers prior to 1800 conceived of their work

D. came to see the visual details of maps as aesthetic objects rather thanpractical cartographic aids E. reduced the attention they paid to the technicalaspects of mapmaking

同样的，在 GRE 阅读中 until 的作用同样如此。本题题目问到，对于在1980s 初期的制图学研究者能推断出什么。对应到文段加粗句，Until the 1980s, in what Blakemore and Harley called “the Old is Beautiful Paradigm,” scholars largely focused on maps made before 1800, marveling at their beauty and sometimes regretting the decline of the pre- technical age. 根据 until 的含义，即 “在 1980s 之前，研究者主要关注 1800 前的地图（特征是美），惊异他们美的同时遗憾这种前技术时代（美）的衰落” 根据 until 的转折含义，提到 1980s 前研究者关注 1800 年前的地图，则1980s后研究者关注 1800 后的地图。因此选择 B，即扩大了研究范围，包含了更多1800 后的材料

这样的通用方法论在托福和 GRE 中还存在很多，如果在托福备考过程中就对这些方法论提前铺垫，有意识的加强就能在 GRE 的备考中大幅提升效率。