新观点推翻旧观点的文章大致可以分成两类：
（1） 头重脚轻型文章，即作者用大篇幅去讲旧观点及其特点，在文章给出它的缺陷和不可救药之处，提出新的观点，这种类型相对较少。
（2） 头轻脚重型文章，即在对旧观点进行了简要的介绍之后立刻提出其缺陷和不可救药之处，然后马上提出作者新的观点，文章的大量篇幅都在论证新观点，有时候也可能在结尾之处给出新观点的一些不痛不痒的缺点以求客观，但不影响作者对新观点的正态度。这种类型的文章是GRE阅读种比较常见的一种。
下面以一个具体例子进行分析：
It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced. For example, ……
Historians, particularly those investigating the history of women, now seriously question this assumption of transforming power. They conclude that such dramatic technological innovations as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, the typewriter, and the vacuum cleaner have not resulted in equally dramatic social changes in women’s economic position or in the prevailing evaluation of women’s work. The employment of young women in textile mills during the Industrial Revolution was largely an extension of an older pattern of employment of young, single women as domestics……
Women’s work has changed considerably in the past 200 years, moving from the household to the office or the factory, and later becoming mostly white-collar instead of blue-collar work. …… Mechanization may even have slowed any change in the traditional position of women both in the labor market and in the home.
开头段作者以这样一句话为开头 “It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced.”, 提出了一个旧的观点，即 “史学家们往往假设，劳动的机构化不仅仅对那些操作新机器的人们的生活，而且也对机器所被引入其中的社会，均产生了种革命性的影响”，下面的for example 是对这个旧观点内容的具体阐述。但是，这并不是作者的真正的观点。在第二段的句话，虽然在第二段的开头并没有明显的表示转折性的词语，但是，通过读完这句话，即“史学家们，尤其是那些研究妇女历史的史学家们，现在对关于机械化进程的变革作用这一假设表示严重的怀疑。”我们可以知道作者对前面提出的观点持一种怀疑的态度，所以，这句话是作者观点转变的转折点，作者真正的新观点应该是第二段的第二句话，即“They conclude that such dramatic technological innovations as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, the typewriter, and the vacuum cleaner have not resulted in equally dramatic social changes in women’s economic position or in the prevailing evaluation of women’s work.”作者的新观点是机械化没有造成妇女地位的任何变化。
在这篇文章中，还有一个典型的问题。就是上面说到的，有些文章的结尾可能提出一个新的观点，但是它是对文章起着让步的作用，并不是文章的真正观点。像这篇文章的一句“Mechanization may even have slowed any change in the traditional position of women both in the labor market and in the home.”，作者提出了一个新的观点，即机械化甚至延缓了妇女地位的变化。
下面再以此篇文章的一道题来举例：
Which of the following statements best summarizes the main idea of the passage?
(A) The effects of the mechanization of women’s work have not borne out the frequently held assumption that new technology is inherently revolutionary.
(B) Recent studies have shown that mechanization revolutionizes a society’s traditional values and the customary roles of its members.
(C) Mechanization has caused the nature of women’s work to change since the Industrial Revolution.
(D) The mechanization of work creates whole new classes of jobs that did not previously exist.
(E) The mechanization of women’s work, while extremely revolutionary it its effects, has not, on the whole, had the deleterious effects that some critics had feared.
分析：
首先，通过题目的叙述，我们可以知道这道题是属于主旨题中对文章大意提问的。做主旨题的关键是先确定文章的结构类型，根据我们上面的分析，这篇文章属于典型的“新观点推翻旧观点”。在每个选项中，都带有mechanization这个词，说明与原文的focus是一致的。但是，只有A选项说出了作者对机械化的负面评价。其他选项都是正态度，或根本不涉及态度。所以，正确答案应该选A.
