Other theorists propose that the Moon was ripped out of the Earth‘s rocky mantle by the Earth’s collision with another large celestial body after much of the Earth‘s iron fell to its core. (4)其他的理论家提出，在地球的大部分铁沉入到地核之后，由于地球与另一个庞大的天体发生碰撞，月亮便从地球那石质的地幔中撕裂开来而形成的。Rip：撕开;拨去;在本文是撕开的意思。
难句类型：复杂修饰
解释：这个句子虽然还算短，但结构并不简单，句中共有三介词结构作状语。结构的复杂在本句中给读者带来了真正的阅读困难：月亮、地球、大型天体之间的关系如何?三个事件之间的先后顺序怎样?另外的一个难点在于，在the Moon was ripped out of the Earth‘s rocky mantle这段话中，be ripped out of something可以作两种解释。Rip既有撕开的意思，又有剥去的意思，而此处的be ripped out of something很被读者理解成被剥夺走某物的意思。实际上，根据对上下文的理解，这里应该理解成从某物中撕裂出来的意思。
意群训练：Other theorists propose that the Moon was ripped out of the Earth‘s rocky mantle by the Earth’s collision with another large celestial body after much of the Earth‘s iron fell to its core.
However ， recent scholarship has strongly suggested that those aspects of early New England culture that seem to have been most distinctly Puritan， such as the strong religious orientation and the communal impulse， were not even typical of New England as a whole， but were largely confined to the two colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
然而，进来的学术研究强烈的显示那些看来最为明确的请教徒的早期新英格兰文化的一些方面，比如强烈的宗教导向和团体意识，就整体而言却不是新英格兰的典型特征，而是在很大程度上只局限与马萨诸赛和康涅狄格两个州。
难句类型：复杂修饰、插入语
解释：宾语从句的主语those aspects后面跟着长长的修饰成分of early New England culture that seem to have been most distinctly Puritan.不但如此，主语和表语之间又被长长的插入语such as分开，而且表语也不是一个，而是were not，but were的结构，使得句子十分难读。
意群训练：However ， recent scholarship has strongly suggested that those aspects of early New England culture that seem to have been most distinctly Puritan， such as the strong religious orientation and the communal impulse， were not even typical of New England as a whole， but were largely confined to the two colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Thus，what in contrast to the Puritan colonies appears to Davis to be peculiarly Southern— acquisitiveness，a strong interest in politics and the law，and a tendency to cultivate metropolitan cultural models—was not only more typically English than the cultural patterns exhibited by Puritan Massachusetts and Connecticut，but also almost certainly characteristic of most other early modern British colonies from Barbados north to Rhode Island and New Hampshire.
因此，那些与(北方)清教殖民地形成鲜明对比、并在戴维斯教授的心目中显得具有特殊南方色彩的特征——占有欲、对政治和法律的浓厚兴趣、以及培养大都市文化模式的倾向——不仅仅要比清教的马萨诸塞州和康乃涅克州所展现出来的文化模式更具有典型的英国色彩，并且几乎毫无疑问地构成了绝大多数其它早期近代英国殖民地的特征，从巴巴多斯北至罗得岛和新罕布什尔州。
难句类型：复杂修饰、插入语
解释：这个颇长的句子是由一个what从句做主语，此主语what in contrast to the Puritan colonies appears to davins to be peculialy Southern中有又一些插入语的修饰成分，其实主干很简单，就是what appears to be Southern.Southern后的两个破折号之间的内容是主语的同位语，实际起到了一个插入语的作用。一直到句子写了五行之后，谓语动词was才姗然出现，难怪读者看得不舒服。But also之后，省略了与前面一样的was.