阅读秘籍之“颖悟绝伦”：如何根据上下文猜测词义？

07月

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逝者如斯夫，不舍昼夜。

暑假备赛时，不可松懈。

眼瞅着7月要结束了，2017“外研社杯”全国英语阅读大赛指定书目读了几本啦？小U拿出一本英文原著开始阅读，原本以为会一目十行，沉迷书中不能自拔↓↓↓

可现实是……

好多单词不认识，怎样愉快地阅读呀？！看来还是要继续修炼“师父”传授的独家阅读秘笈才行！今天学习的招式——“颖悟绝伦”

根据上下文猜测词义

在阅读过程中，遇到生词是在所难免的事。这时就需要同学们学会根据上下文语境，对词义进行合理推测啦~常用的推测方法主要有以下三种。

1 通过转折对比的线索

句子中的转折词能够实现意思的转折，我们通常可以根据转折后的意思猜测出前面词的含义，或者根据前面的意思猜测出转折后的含义。

常见转折词：but, yet, however, nevertheless…

举个栗子你能猜出frivolous的词义吗？

After having had a really bad day, she wanted to read something frivolous. Normally, however, she preferred serious novels.

猜词思路

转折词however前面的意思是：在经历了非常不开心的一天后，她想读一些frivolous的东西；而however后面的意思是：通常情况下，她喜欢读严肃的小说。frivolous和serious的意思相反，所以frivolous的意思是“不严肃的，草率的，随便的”。

2 通过同义复述的线索

表示解释的过渡词（组）后面的词语或句子通常是对前面词语含义的复述，所以我们可以根据这些同义复述推测出前面词语的词义。

常见过渡词（组）：or, also known as, in other words, the same as…

举个栗子你能猜出famished的词义吗？

The little girl was famished; in other words, she was starving.

猜词思路

表示解释的过渡词组in other words前后句子的含义相同，后面句子的意思是：她正饿着肚子；所以前面句子中的famished等同于starving，意思都是“很饿的”。

3 通过举例暗示的线索

在一段话中，如果出现难以理解的词，后面通常会使用一两个例子对该词进行解释。我们可以根据这些例子的暗示猜测出词义。

举个栗子你能猜出ambivalent的词义吗？

His feelings for his cousin were ambivalent: sometimes he delighted in her company; at other times he couldn't stand the sight of her.

猜词思路

这个句子的意思是：他对他表妹（姐）的感觉ambivalent，后面的两个句子是对ambivalent这种感觉的举例说明：“有时他喜欢和她待在一起，有时他甚至不愿见到她”，所以ambivalent的意思是“矛盾的”。

真题演练

学完猜词方法，下面我们来体验几道大赛真题~~

1. "To remain stable is to refrain from trying to separate yourself from a pain because you know that you cannot. Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being XXXX. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape."

(From The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety)

Q: Which of the following is most probably the missing word XXXX?

A. brutal

B. scared

C. inspired

D. evasive

2. When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most XXXX child ever seen. It was true, too.

She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the faces of her nurse and the other native servants. They always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything. By the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.

Q: What is the meaning of the missing word XXXX in the text?

A. unscrupulous

B. independent

C. disagreeable

D. unfortunate

（真题答案，请见留言区）

在阅读中，猜测词义是学习生词的第一步，但是我们不能止步于此，而是要牢牢记住、掌握这些猜测出来的词义，这样才能不断扩大、充实自己的词汇量，最终提高阅读能力。从另一个角度来说，你的词汇量越大，你猜词的能力也就越强，猜到的词义就会越准确。

下面，我们就来总结一下今天猜到的单词词义吧。U粉们赶快拿出小本本记下来哦~

看完不过瘾？想要继续修炼，提升阅读水平？更多阅读秘籍尽在《阅读大赛全程通关》数字课程！