首尾句串读法既然“中心即态度，态度即中心”，那么寻找中心主旨的方法同样适用于寻找体现作者态度的表达。其中，“首尾句串读法”仍然是最普遍适用的一种方法。真题案例2011英语二Text 1Ⅰ①Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs’s board as an outside director in January 2000; a year later she became president of Brown University. ......③But by the end of 2009 Ms. Simmons was under fire for having sat on Goldman’s compensation committee; how could she have let those enormous bonus payouts passunremarked? ......Ⅱ①Outside directors are supposed to serve as helpful, yet less biased, advisers on a firm’s board. .......Ⅲ①The researchers from Ohio University used a database that covered more than 10,000 firms and more than 64,000 different directors between 1989 and 2004. ...... ④They found that after a surprise departure, the probability that the company will subsequently have to restate earnings increases by nearly 20%. ......Ⅳ ①But the researchers believe that outside directors have an easier time of avoiding a blow to their reputations if they leave a firm before bad news breaks, even if a review of history shows they were on the board at the time any wrong doing occurred. ②Firms who want to keep their outside directors through tough times may have to create incentives. ......题目 The author’s attitude toward the role of outside directors is .[A] permissive[B] positive[C] scornful[D] critical解析从首段句①我们可以获知以下信息：露丝·西蒙斯既是高盛公司的外聘董事(outside director)，又是布朗大学的校长。这是一个细节信息，由此可以推测本段是要用一个事例来引出文章讨论的重点。首句没有重要信息，接着，句③出现了转折词，转折词之后的内容应作为阅读的重点，尤其是首尾段的转折内容。But之后的信息告诉我们，露丝·西蒙斯因为未能履行好自身的职责而遭到批评(under fire)。读到这里，外聘董事貌似有问题，应该画“－”号。第二段首句是对外聘董事的直接评价。作者认为，外聘董事对公司董事会而言应该是有帮助且不带个人偏见的顾问。这句话中的helpful和less biased都是好词，也就是说在这里，外聘董事是有用的，画“+”号。第三段作者引用了大学研究的例子来进一步论证外聘董事的作用。前面说过，阅读过程中，研究过程和内容不重要，重要的是研究结果。因此，我们直接看研究结果。本段句④的they found标志着后半句话就是研究结果。根据这句话可知，在外聘董事突然离开(surprise departure)一家公司之后，这家公司往往会变得更糟糕，比如他们需要进行盈余重述，卷入联邦诉讼的可能性增加了，股票表现也可能更差。这一研究结果恰好从侧面反映了外聘董事对公司其实是很有用的。此处画“+”号。第四段内容比较客观，首句陈述了研究人员针对外聘人员如何保护名声提出的看法，句②提出公司在困难时期如何留住外聘董事：如果外聘董事不想名声受损就应该在公司的坏消息传出去之前离开公司；想要在困难时期留住外聘董事的公司可能必须采取激励措施。首句是研究人员的看法，句②是作者自己的观点。本段的尾句以otherwise (否则)开头，是从反面论证前一句(也就是句②)的观点，所以重点信息在句②。由此可以看出，本段作者是从保护外聘董事的角度论述，可见作者对外聘董事的态度是积极的，画“+”号。因此可知，作者对外聘董事的态度是积极肯定的，因此本题选B。
