6.4 Non-Continuous 材料: Notices, Regulations, Correspondence & Infographics

Non-Continuous 材料: Notices, Regulations, Correspondence & Infographics

SC-TOP describes the 閱讀理解 part of Band C Reading as: 「閱讀完一篇材料或短文以後，根據提問，選出符合這段材料或短文的答案。」 Note the first noun — 材料, material. It sits beside 短文 (short text) for a reason. The Reading test's own genre list names 廣告 (advertisements), 公告 (public notices), 信件 (letters), 便條 (notes) and 天氣預報 (weather forecasts) alongside subject fields such as 文學, 科學, 藝術, 天文 and 歷史. At Band A those genres appear as a shop sign or a note on a fridge. At Band C they appear in their adult, institutional form: a scholarship announcement with eligibility provisos, a set of tenancy regulations, a formal reply from a government office, a corporate results table with a paragraph of commentary beside it.

Candidates who prepare only editorials and literary essays walk into this cold. These documents are dense, they are structured rather than argued, and their questions are decided by a single proviso.

---

The 主旨 / 說明 / 辦法 Skeleton

Taiwanese official documents (公文 gōng wén) are written to a fixed three-part frame. Recognising it converts a wall of formal Chinese into a lookup table.

Supporting fields carry information too: 受文者 (shòu wén zhě, addressee), 發文日期 and 發文字號 (issue date and document number), 檢附 (jiǎn fù, enclosed herewith), and 副本 (fù běn, copied to). A question asking 這份公文是發給誰的？ is answered by 受文者, never by the body text.

---

Mandatory versus Discretionary: the 應 / 得 Distinction

Regulatory Chinese encodes obligation with a small closed set of words, and Band C distractors are manufactured by swapping one for another. Learn these as a paired system, not as isolated vocabulary.

A worked trap. The text reads 主管機關得延長申請期限一個月。 The distractor reads 主管機關必須將申請期限延長一個月。 The distractor is wrong for exactly one character: 得 grants a power, it does not impose a duty. This single substitution is one of the most reliable question mechanisms in the whole Reading paper.

---

Exception Clauses Carry the Answer

In continuous prose the main clause usually carries the point. In 材料 the proviso usually does.

• 除…外 (chú… wài) — except for. Beware the two readings: 除甲之外，乙亦適用 (in addition to A, B also applies) versus 除甲之外，均不適用 (apart from A, none applies). The following clause disambiguates.
• 但 / 但書 (dàn shū) — the proviso sentence that reverses or narrows the rule just stated.
• 不在此限 (bù zài cǐ xiàn) — is not subject to this restriction. It carves an exemption out of the immediately preceding rule.
• 以…為限 (yǐ… wéi xiàn) — limited to. A ceiling, not a target.
• 至遲 (zhì chí) — at the latest. Marks a hard deadline; pair it with 逾期不予受理 (late submissions will not be accepted).
• 亦同 (yì tóng) — the same applies. Extends the preceding rule to a new case without restating it.

When a question offers two options that both look supported, the one that ignores a 但書 or a 不在此限 is the distractor.

---

Formal Correspondence (信件) at Band C

Band C letters are institutional, not personal. A small stock of formulae covers most of them:

The exam-relevant point is pragmatic force, not politeness. 惠請貴單位於文到十日內見復 is a deadline, not a pleasantry: the question will ask what the recipient must do and by when.

---

Cross-Referencing a Table Against Its Prose

The hardest 材料 items pair a table or chart with a paragraph and ask which statement is consistent with both. Work the pair in this order:

1. Read the table's title, unit and reference period first. 單位：新臺幣千元 and 統計期間：114年1月至6月 decide more questions than any data cell. Note that Taiwanese official documents commonly date by the ROC calendar (民國), so 民國114年 is 2025 — add 1911.
2. Identify what the prose adds. Commentary beside a table usually supplies a cause or a comparison the table cannot show. Statements about why a figure moved must come from the prose.
3. Test each option against the narrower source. If an option makes a numeric claim, check the table; if it makes a causal claim, check the prose. An option that attributes a causal claim to the table is a 無中生有 distractor.
4. Check the direction words. 較…增加 (increased compared with), 較…減少, 佔 (accounts for), 分別為 (respectively) and 依序為 (in order) each fix a relationship that a distractor can quietly reverse.

---

A Four-Minute Routine for Any 材料 Item

1. Zero to 40 seconds — locate the document type and its skeleton: 主旨 / 說明 / 辦法 for a notice, title and unit for a table, 受文者 and 發文日期 for correspondence.
2. 40 to 90 seconds — mark every 應, 得, 不得, 但, 除…外, 不在此限 and 至遲. These are the answer sites.
3. 90 seconds to 3 minutes — read the questions and route each one to the cell, clause or proviso that governs it.
4. 3 to 4 minutes — verify the survivor against the exact wording, paying particular attention to whether the option converts a power into a duty or drops an exemption.

Practise on real documents: the announcements page of any Taiwanese university's international office, MOE scholarship notices, and the National Statistics bulletins all publish exactly the register Band C draws on.