所谓“知己知彼，百战不殆”。其实，只要我们了解并熟悉了英语文章的篇章结构，准确把握文章的段落大意就不是什么难事了。下面我们列举职称英语教材上面的几段话来剖析英语文章中段落的结构：
(一)【主题句段首型】
According to news reports， US restaurants are partly to blame for the growing bellies. A waiter outs a plate of food in front of each customer， with two to four times the amount recommended by the government， according to a USA Today story. Americans traditionally associate quality with value and most restaurants try to give them that. They prefer to have customers complain about too much food rather than too little。
本段共有四句话，该段的结构是明显的总分结构，它的主题句是段落的第一句，美国的餐厅应为人们不断增大的肚子受到一定程度的指责。而后面的三句话则举例子：服务员为客人提供过多的事物，这样客人对餐厅的评价就会更高，一次来说明本段的主题：美国餐厅应受指责。
值得注意的是，在职称英语考试中，这一类型的考题出现频率相比之下要高得多。
(二)【主题句段中型】
The vegetable and fruit and flower merchants are surrounded by baskets of purple eggplants， green peppers， strings of tiny silvery onions， heads of bitter Indian spinach， and a dozen Indian vegetables for which I don’t even know the English names. I had forgotten about the profusion of fruit in India—it is only during the brief intense summer that you see much variety of fruit in Moscow. In Russia， as winter approaches all vegetables except for potatoes and the pervasive cabbage in soup seem to disappear from the menus。
本段共三句话，第一句列举印度菜市场上蔬菜水果品种繁多的景象，以此引出主题句我已经忘记了只有在莫斯科的夏天才能看到的品种多样丰富的水果，而第三句话也是对主题句的又一个列举。
(三)【主题句段尾型】
People live in cities today think that meat is something that comes warped in cellophane from the supermarket， potatoes come by the pound in plastic or paper bags， and feather grows in hats. The city dwellers’’ views are quite different from the views of their ancestors， who knew that meat is hunted down in the forest， potatoes are planted and weeded， and inky birds can produce feathers. Yet， whether people today realize it or not， they are still as dependent on animals and plants for their existence as their ancestors were。
