托福阅读中的指代题难度系数较小，但总有一部分学生容易在此类型题目上犯错，其实只要记住几条原则，就可以轻松搞定指代题：
原则1：代词指代的内容通常会在前文出现；
原则2：代词和被指代内容的数性和性质必须一致；
原则3：名词当作代词处理；
我们一起来看几个实例，看下这几条原则具体如何应用。
In the past, biologists considered mushrooms and other fungi as a type of non-free plant. Today, however, they are most commonly regarded as a separate kingdom of living things.
这里的代词they 指代的内容应该在原文中出现，并且其数要一致，不可能是plant;只能是biologists 或者mushrooms and other fungi; 又因为，代词与其指代内容的性质也要一致，因此，they 指代的是mushrooms and other fungi。
又如下题：
1. The word they in the passage refers to
○ valleys
○ trees
○ heights
○ ridges
At the upper timberline the trees begin to become twisted and deformed. This is particularly true for trees in the middle and upper latitudes, which tend to attain greater heights on ridges, whereas in the tropics the trees reach their greater heights in the valleys. This is because middle- and upper- latitude timberlines are strongly influenced by the duration and depth of the snow cover. As the snow is deeper and lasts longer in the valleys, trees tend to attain greater heights on the ridges, even though they are more exposed to high-velocity winds and poor, thin soils there. In the tropics, the valleys appear to be more favorable because they are less prone to dry out, they have less frost, and they have deeper soils.
根据标黑代词定位至原文，再据原则一和原则二，可以判断出they 指代trees。
2. The phrase “glacial outwash” in the passage refers to
○ Fast rivers
○ Glaciers
○ The huge volumes of water created by glacial melting
○ The particles carried in water from melting glaciers.
Paragraph 2: The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles—sand grains and tiny pebbles—of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
此题是考名词指代，我们把它当做代词来处理，根据句意，它指代的内容应该是前文的pebbles, gravel, and sand, 再联系下文的that was deposited as the flow slowed down.很容易就能判断出正确答案应该是选项4。
2. The author tells the story of the explorers Lewis and Clark in paragraph 3 in order to illustrate which of the following points?
○ The number of deer within the Puget Sound region has varied over time.
○ Most of the explorers who came to the Puget Sound area were primarily interested in hunting game.
○ There was more game for hunting in the East of the United States than in the West.
○ Individual explorers were not as successful at locating games as were the trading companies.
Paragraph 3: The numbers of deer have fluctuated markedly since the entry of Europeans into Puget Sound country. The early explorers and settlers told of abundant deer in the early 1800s and yet almost in the same breath bemoaned the lack of this succulent game animal. Famous explorers of the north American frontier, Lewis and Clark arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River on November 14, 1805, in nearly starved circumstances. They had experienced great difficulty finding game west of the Rockies and not until the second of December did they kill their first elk. To keep 40 people alive that winter, they consumed approximately 150 elk and 20 deer. And when game moved out of the lowlands in early spring, the expedition decided to return east rather than face possible starvation. Later on in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Fort Vancouver became the headquarters of the Hudson‘s Bay Company, deer populations continued to fluctuate. David Douglas, Scottish botanical explorer of the 1830s, found a disturbing change in the animal life around the fort during the period between his first visit in 1825 and his final contact with the fort in 1832. A recent Douglas biographer states:“ The deer which once picturesquely dotted the meadows around the fort were gone [in 1832], hunted to extermination in order to protect the crops.”
此段极长，详细得介绍了Lewis 和Clark的例子，这两个例子都是为了论证此段的主旨的，即该段的主题句：The numbers of deer have fluctuated markedly since the entry of Europeans into Puget Sound country. ——鹿群的数量变化大。
类似的考察点还有TPO 1 The Origins of Theater中第11题等。
综上所述，对于修辞目的题的谱儿就在于作者提到的statement与上下文的逻辑以及段落的主题句