一、名詞表主題

When it comes to the slowing economy,Ellen Spero isn’t biting her nails just yet. But the 47yearold manicuristisn’t cutting, filing or polishing as many nails as she’d like to, either. Mostof her clients spend $12to $50weekly, but last month two longtime customers suddenly stopped showing up.Spero blames the softening economy. “I’m a good economic indicator”， shesays. “I provide a service that people can do without when they’re concernedabout saving some dollars。” So Spero is downscaling, shopping at middle-browDillard’s department store near her suburban Cleveland home, instead of Neiman Marcus. “Idon’t know if other clients are going to abandon me, too,” she says。

文中劃線名詞短語為考生提供了復現信息，即使沒完全讀懂，考生也能確定本段的主題是“疲軟的經濟狀況”，每句話都沒離開這個主題。
   二、動詞表變化

All of this caused a crisis ofconfidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They beganto believe that their way of doing business was failing, and that theirincomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid 1980sbrought one inquiry after another into the causes of America’s industrial decline. Theirsometimes sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growingcompetition from overseas。

動詞是各種變化最明顯的體現，它可以表明文中所述情況、作者態度以及情感的變化等。本段中出現的劃線動詞都體現了一個從好到壞的變化趨勢，再結合文章話題，可以確定本段中心是：美國經濟霸主地位的喪失給人們的信心帶來的消極影響。

三、形容詞表態度

Even before Alan Greenspan’s admission that America’s redhot economy is cooling, lots of working folks had already seen signs of theslowdown themselves. From car dealerships to Gap outlets, sales have beenlagging for months as shoppers temper their spending. For retailers, who lastyear took in 24 percent of their revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas,the cautious approach is coming at a crucial time. Already, experts say,holiday sales are off 7 percent from last year’s pace. But don’t sound anyalarms just yet. Consumers seem only mildly concerned, not panicked,and many say they remain optimistic about the economy’s long termprospects even as they do some modest belt tightening。

形容詞是作者對所論述話題的態度的直接體現。以此段為例，前半部分都是關于美國經濟不景氣的描述，如果只看到這些，一定會認為下文也應該是一些消極方面的描述。但在But轉折之后，出現了一系列的形容詞，這是詞都具有積極的感情色彩，與前面的情況形成鮮明的對比，表明了作者的態度，也是本段段落中心的體現。