英语考试阅读理解题的猜词技巧(3)
即利用语境来推测生词含义的方法。这是我们用来推测词义的主要方法之一。
例一：The days of elderly women doing nothing but cooking huge meals on holidays are gone. Enter the Red Hat Society—a group holding the belief that old ladies should have fun.
“My grandmothers did not do anything, but keep house and serve everybody, they were programmed to do that,” said Emily Cornette, head of a chapter of the 7-year-old Red Hat Society.
根据上下文我们可以很容易得出chapter的词义为这个组织the Red Hat Society的一个分支。
例二：As regards the development of moral standards in the growing child, consistency ( 一贯性 )is very important teaching. To forbid a thing one day and excuse it the next is no foundation for morality ( 道德 ). Also, parents should realize that “example is better than precept”. If they are not sincere and don’t practice what they preach ( teach ), their children may grow confused, and emotionally insecure ( 不稳定 )when they grow old enough to think for themselves, and realize they have been to some extent fooled.
根据上下文我们可知precept的词义为“说教”。
例三：Here are some simple ways to beat the stress often caused by our inventions!
Don’t be available all the time. Turn off your mobile phone at certain times of the day. Don’t check your e-mail every day. Don’t reply to somebody as soon as they leave a text message just because you can. It may be fun at first, but it soon gets annoying.
根据语境我们知道available的词义为“可与之交谈的”或“有空的”。
例四：We found that bar at last. I didn’t have to ask again, for there it was in big letters over the window—Star Bar. There were some iron tables outside with plastic chairs around them. A few people sat listlessly around, looking at a portable television set that someone had brought out of the bar. They were all in thin summer dresses or short sleeved-shirts; even at that late hour it was stifling. Two thin dogs lay under one of the tables with their tongues out, and some of the women were fanning themselves unenthusiastically (无精打采的) with magazines.
根据语境我们猜出stifling的词义为“极热的”。
九、标点符号的暗示
例一：The days of elderly women doing nothing but cooking huge meals on holidays are gone. Enter the Red Hat Society—a group holding the belief that old ladies should have fun.
破折号后面的部分对the Red Hat Society作了解释，是“一个认为老年人应该有自己乐趣的团体”。
例二：The largest player—Shanghai Bashi Tourism Car Rental Center offers a wide variety of choices—deluxe sedans, minivans, station wagons, coaches. Santana sedans are the big favorite.
第二个破折号后面的deluxe sedans, minivans, station wagons, coaches应该指的是汽车的品牌或种类。
十、同义词的替代关系
例句：Although he often had the opportunity, Mr. Tritt was never able to steal money from a customer. This would have endangered his position at the bank, and he didn’t want to jeopardize his future.
为避免重复使用endanger一词， 用同义词jeopardize来替代它, 我们推知jeopardize词义为“使陷入危险，危及，危害”。
十一、利用主系表结构来猜词
主系表结构的句子有两种功能：一是说明主语的形状和特征;二是主语和表语是同位关系。
例一：To malign is to slander an innocent person.
表语意为“诽谤无辜的人”， 那样主语就是“中伤，诽谤”的意思。
例二：Insomnia is the inability of falling asleep or sleeping restlessly.
表语意为“睡不着”，主语Insomnia无疑就是“失眠”了。
十二、生活常识
根据日常生活中的常识和相关的背景知识，大胆想象，合理发挥，推测出生词的含义。
例一：Warm-blooded desert animals, such as rats and mice, rest during the day, often staying in cool underground burrows.
根据常识我们知道鼠类一般藏在洞里，因此生词burrows的意思为“地洞，洞穴”。
例二：The snake slithered through the grass.
根据有关蛇的生活习性的知识，我们可以推测出slithered的词义为“爬行”。
十三、构词法
英语词汇的构词法主要有三种：派生，合成，转化构词。
我们主要利用派生构词来推断生词的含义。
词根是单词最基本的部分，表达单词的基本含义。在词根的前面或后面加上词缀，可以用来引申或转变原词的意义。一般来说，前缀改变词根的意思;后缀改变词性。
常见的前缀有：super- 超……
mini- 小型的……
re- 再，又……
post- 后
pre- 前
fore- 前
under- 下
后缀有：
-ment 名词的后缀
-less 不，无
-proof 防……的
例句：Remember that people on line may not be who they seem. Because you can’t see or even hear the person, it would be easy for someone to misrepresent himself/herself. Thus someone says “She is a 12-year-old girl ”could really be an old man.