托福阅读中的句意解释题也有人称其为“变换措辞题”，也就是用自己的语言来改写文章中的句子或者段落，以不同的方式重新陈述另一句话，保留其内容，而不改变原来句子的意思。在托福阅读文章中，可能有0-1道这样的题目，每次考试总共有2到3题。
　　这类型题目的题干表达为：Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.
　　解决这类题目的三种方法：
　　第一种：在保持原句序基本不变的前提下进行重点词汇或者词组的同义替换;
　　第二种：在句序不变的前提下再进行重点词汇或者词组的同义替换;
　　第三种：对原句进行总结性重复。
　　下面我们通过一个例子来看这些方法的具体应用：
　　Small marketers should be less concerned with whether U.S. and European consumers are alike and more concerned with monitoring the variety of factors that account for potential similarities and differences. Attention to the dynamic nature of those factors will produce opportunities for the alert marketer.
　　Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.
　　1. A marketer who is not so smart should be more concerned with the difference of eating habits between U.S. and European consumers and less concerned with monitoring the variety of factors that account for potential similarities and differences.
　　2. It is not important whether U.S. and European consumers have a similar eating habit. I t is the potential similarities and differences that people should be more concerned with.
　　3. Marketers should focus on the factors that account for difference rather than the difference themselves.
　　4. Monitoring the variety of foods could explain the potential similarities and differences.
　　解题：
　　 首先，我们来分析这个句子，整个主句的主语为Small marketers，谓语为be concerned with，宾语为factors，这个分析完成之后，我们采用同意替换的方法，替换其中的重点词组-谓语be concerned with，其同义词为focus on。这样替换完之后把两个句子的意思进行比较，得出正确答案C。这道题目采用了第一种方法。
　　总之，托福阅读中的句意解释题解答关键就是分析句子结构，找出其中的重要词组进行同义替换，结合整个句子的意思进行重新组织句子，最后采用排除法找出正确答案。
     　1. Wearing masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or supernatural beings, and mined the desired effect – success in hunt or battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun – as an actor might.
　　戴着面具身着盛装的人们，经常扮演各种其他人物、动物或超自然生灵，并且作为一个扮演者所能做的，就是期盼一个在狩猎或战役中获胜、降雨的来临，阳光的重现的结果。
　　2.But these factors do not account for the interesting question of how there came to be such a concentration of pregnant ichthyosaurs in a particular place very close to their time of giving birth.
　　但是这些事实不能解释这个令人感兴趣的问题，就是为什么在一个特殊的靠近他们出生的地方如此的集中了这么多怀孕的鱼龙。
　　3.A series of mechanical improvements continuing well into the nineteenth century, including the introduction of pedals to sustain tone or to soften it, the perfection of a metal frame, and steel wire of the finest quality, finally produced an instruments capable of myriad tonal effects from the most delicate harmonies to an almost orchestral fullness of sound, from a liquid, singing tone to a ship, percussive brilliance.
　　十九世纪一系列持续的机械进步，包括踏板的传入、金属结构的完善和钢丝最完美的质量，最后产生了一种能容纳无数音调——从最精致的和弦到一个成熟管弦的声音或从一个清澈的歌声到辉煌的敲击乐的效果——的乐器。
　　4.Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1972 as “silent”, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word, silent.
　　虽然我们习惯于谈到1972年以前的电影是无声的，但用一句完全感性的话来说，电影从来就不是没有声音的。
　　5.For a number of years the selection of music for each film program rested entirely in the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often the principal qualifications for holding such a position was not skill or taste so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical pieces.
　　多年以来电影音乐的选择程序完全掌握在导演和音乐督导手中，通常拥有这些权力的主要资格并非是自身的技艺和品味而更多的是因为拥有大量的个人音乐素材库。
　　6.Rather, they were made of a top layer of woolen or glazed worsted wool fabric, consisting of smooth, compact yarn from long wool fibers, dyed dark blue, green, or brown with a bottom layer of a coarser woolen material, either natural or a shade of yellow.
　　更进一步，他们是由一个顶层是毛纺或光滑的精纺羊毛织物制作，包含光滑，紧凑的纱线来自长羊毛的纤维染成兰黑色、绿色、或褐色底层含有粗糙天然的和暗黄色的毛纺材料。
　　7.For good measure, during the spring and summer drought, heat, hail, grasshoppers, and other frustrations might await the weary growers.
　　在春季和夏季，要精确量度干旱、热量、冰雹、蝗虫和其他损失可能是一件疲劳的事情。
　　8.What we today call America folk art was, indeed, art of, by, and for ordinary, everyday “folks” who, with increasing prosperity and leisure, created a market for art of all kinds, and especially for portraits.
　　我们今天所谓的美国民间艺术，实际上是普通老百姓的艺术、被普通老百姓创造的艺术和为普通老百姓和日常提到的“民间人士”的艺术，是一个他们在社会日渐繁荣和休闲情况下创建的一个包含各种各样尤其是肖像画种类的艺术的市场。
　　9.The people had no agriculture but, over thousands of years, had developed techniques and equipment to exploit their environment, basing their economy on fishing in streams and coastal waters that teemed with salmon, halibut, and other varieties of fish; gathering abalone, mussels, clams, and other shellfish from the rocky coastline; hunting land and sea mammals; and collecting wild plant foods.
　　他们没有农业，但是经过几千年，已经发展了探索自身环境的技术和设备。他们是基于大量出现鲑鱼、大比目鱼和其他多种鱼类的自身流域和水岸捕鱼的经济;基于从落基山水岸聚集了鲍鱼、蚌类、蛤和其他贝壳动物的经济;基于捕猎地域和海洋哺乳动物的经济;以及基于收集野生植物的食物的经济。