高考英语阅读理解解题技巧之词义猜测
历年来高考试题中的生词量有增无减。《教学大纲》要求学生“读懂生词率不超过3%的传记、故事、记叙文、科普小品文和有关社会文史知识等不同题材的材料。”在英语阅读训练和测试中的生词障碍往往会成为学生理解的“绊脚石”，这些“绊脚石”的出现大致分五类：1．旧词新义，考查词汇表中未出现的词义；如：Nearby is the Indianapolis race course, where the nation’s most famous car race is held each year on May 30.我们学过 course的意思是“过程，课程”等，在此显然不符句意。根据上下文 course是汽车赛举行的地方，可推断 course在该句是“车道”或“跑道”的意思。2．合成词、转化词与派生词，如shoplifting，heartbroken，computer-literate，decision-thinking，imperfect等；3．“灵活”的常用词增多，这些词必须根据具体的上下文语境才能正确理解；4．“新鲜”的外国人名、地名、专有名称增多，这些词有些带有一定的文化背景5．超纲生词。如： NMET2002《大纲》之外的和熟词新意的生词达57个，NMET2003年除52个专有名词和15个注汉字的生词外，还有52个生词 (含熟词生义)。
有的学生在阅读训练和测试中存在着“生词恐惧心理”，一遇到生词就有读不下去的感觉。那么阅读理解时遇到大量生词该怎么办? 查词典当然是排除词义障碍的一种方法，当然这只有在平常的阅读训练中才可以使用。但是，频繁的查阅词典既影响阅读速度，又容易破坏学生阅读的思路和兴趣。况且，一词多义是英语词汇的主要特点，词典不一定能为学生提供单词在特定的上下文中的具体或确切的含义。平时的练习中遇到生词不要马上查词典，可以通过一定的方法来猜测理解。猜测词义不仅是一项阅读技巧，也是高考阅读能力考查的一个方面，每年在高考阅读中都有猜测词义的试题。掌握正确方法快速而又准确地猜测出生词的含义，对提高阅读速度和答题效率相当重要。
该类题常见的考查形式有：
A. The phrase “…”in the sentence could be replaced by ____. B. The word “…” in the paragraph refers to ____.
C. What is the meaning of the underlined word in the paragraph? / What does the unlined word mean?
D. Which of the following is the closest in meaning to the phrase “…”? E. The word “…” most nearly means ____.
对此类试题，考生应该进行大胆猜测，但这种猜测不是胡乱的，盲目的，而是有一定的
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方法和技巧。下面介绍十种常见的猜测词义的方法供同学们加以运用。
1．构词法猜词
阅读中常常会遇到一些由熟悉的单词派生或合成的新词。掌握构词法对猜测词义很有帮助。如：unforeseeable.这个词，可以根据构词法把它拆成un, fore, see , able；其中 see 是词根，fore是“先，前，预”的含义，un是否定，able是“能……的，可……的”，因此unforeseeable是“未能预见到的”意思。
例题1 …The reasons for a visit to a lighthouse are not all so backward-looking in time. It is true that lighthouses were built in out-of-the-way places. But on a pleasant sunny summer day, this very isolation has a natural beauty that many people will love to experience. …
68. The underlined phrase “out-of-the-way” in Paragraph 4 means ____________. A. far-away B. dangerous C. ancient D. secret
【答案与解析】选A。由合成词out-of-the-way的原意以及下句中的isolation一词，可知灯塔在一个“孤零零”的地方。
例题2 …Baker concludes that people do not have the ability to sense when they’re being stared at. If people doubt the outcome of his two experiments, said Baker, “I suggest they repeat the experiments and see for themselves.” …
70. The underlined word “outcome” in the last paragraph most probably means . A. value B. result C. performance D. connection
【答案与解析】选B。运用“构词法”进行猜测。动词词组come out 的意义为“露出、出现、显露出”。再根据句子的语境，可猜测出其意义是：(实验的)结果。
2．利用同义近义词猜词
在生词所出现的上下文中，有时会出现与之同义或近义的词语或结构，这时可从熟悉的词语中推知生词的含义。统称在词或短语之间有并列连词and或or，这些词语或短语在句中作相同的成分，并且and或or连接的两项内容在含义上是接近的或递进的，由此确定同等关系中的某个生词所属的义域，甚至推出它的大致词义。
例题1
…Animals have different living habits. Some like to look for food at daytime and sleep at night, but some like to sleep at daytime and prowl at night. …
【答案与解析】通过这些并列句可以看出prowl与look for food 是同义近义词，词义
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也应是“寻找食物”。
例题2 …Fermat’s Last Theorem（定理）, first put forward by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in the seventeenth century, the theorem had baffled and beaten the finest mathematical minds, including a French woman scientists who made a major advance in working out the problem, and who had to dress like a man in order to be able to study at the Ecole Polytechnique. …
65. Which of the following best explains the meaning of the word “baffle” as it is used in the text?
A. To encourage people to raise questions. B. To cause difficulty in understanding. C. To provide a person with an explanation. D. To limit people’s imagination.
3．利用反义词猜词
对比是描述，说明事物的常用方式。在对比中，对比的事物是互为相反的，因此根据反义或对比关系可从已知推出未知。利用反义词来说明生词的意义，如反义词hot and cold, perfect and imperfect，甚至前、后句为肯定与否定或是与不是等，在句内词与词之间，在段内句与句之间的关系上起着互为线索的作用。
例题1 Unlike her gregarious sister, Jane is shy, unsociable person who does not like to go to parties or to make new friends.
【答案与解析】此句是把Jane与她姐妹对比。Jane生性腼腆，不爱交际，而她姐姐却与之相反，那就是“爱交际的”了，这也就猜出gregarious的词义了。
例题2 In many nations there are two financial extremes (极端), from penury to great wealth.
【答案与解析】penury: the state of being very poor; poverty (贫穷; 贫困) 例题3 …A child’s birthday party doesn’t have to be a hassle ; it can be a basket of fun, according to Beth Anaclerio, an Evaston mother of two, ages 4 and 18 months. …
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