高二英语学习方法：掌握猜词技巧 提升阅读能力(3)

　　八、语境线索或上下文

　　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”。