2013广州中考英语阅读理解知识复习——知识要点(6)

　　III. 单词猜测词义的方法和技巧：

　　1. 根据上下文猜测词意，例如：

　　After giving a talk at a high school, I was asked to pay a visit to a special student. An illness had kept the boy home…

　　During the nine-mile drive to his home, I found out something about Matthew. He had muscular dystrophy(肌营养不良). When he was born, the doctor told his parents that he would not live to five, and then they were told he would not make it to ten. Now he was thirteen.

　　…

　　Last summer I received a letter from Matthew’s parents telling me that Matthew had passed away…

　　Dear Rick,

　　My mom said I should send you a thank-you letter for the picture you sent me. I also want to let you know that the doctors tell me that I don't have long to live any more. …

　　上面短文中passed away的含义，可以根据上文的“When he was born, the doctor told his parents that he would not live to five, and then they were told he would not make it to ten.”和下文Matthew的信中猜测出来，意为“去世”。

　　2. 根据构词法猜测词意。

　　在阅读文章时，我们总会遇上一些新词汇，有时很难根据上下文来推断其词意，而它们对文章的理解又有着举足轻重的作用，此时，如掌握了一些常用的词根、前缀、后缀等语法知识，这些问题便不难解决了。例如：

　　前缀un-表反义词，如happy、unhappy，fair、unfair，important、unimportant等。

　　后缀- ment表名词，如develop、development，state、statement，argue、argument等。

　　后缀-er、-or或-ist表同源名词，如calculate/ calculator; visit/ visitor; law/ lawyer; wait/waiter; science/ scientist; art/ artist等。

　　3. 通过因果关系猜词。

　　首先是找出生词与上下文之间的逻辑关系，然后猜词。有时文章借助关联词(如because，as，since，for，so，thus，as a result，of course，therefore等等)表示前因后果。例如：

　　You shouldn’t have blamed him for that，for it wasn’t his fault.

　　通过for引出的句子所表示的原因(那不是他的错)，可猜出blame的词义是“责备”。

　　4. 通过同义词和反义词的关系猜词。

　　通过同义词猜词，一是要看由and或or连接的同义词词组，如happy and gay，即使我们不认识gay这个词，也可以知道它是愉快的意思;二是看在进一步解释的过程中使用的同义词，如Man has known something about the planets Venus，Mars，and Jupiter with the help of spaceships.此句中的Venus (金星)、Mars (火星)、Jupiter (木星)均为生词，但只要知道planets就可猜出这几个词都属于“行星”这一义域。通过反义词猜词，一是看表示转折关系的连词或副词，如but，while，however等;二是看与not搭配的或表示否定意义的词语，如：

　　He is so homely，not at all as handsome as his brother.

　　根据not at all...handsome我们不难推测出homely的意思，即不英俊、不漂亮的意思。

　　5. 通过定义或释义关系来推测词义。例如：

　　But sometimes，no rain falls for a long，long time. Then there is a dry period，or drought.

　　从drought所在句子的上文我们得知很久不下雨，于是便有一段干旱的时期，即drought，由此可见drought意思为“久旱”，“旱灾”。而a dry period和drought是同义语。这种同义或释义关系常由is，or，that is，in other words，be called或破折号等来表示。

　　6. 通过句法功能来推测词义。例如：

　　Bananas，oranges，pineapples，coconuts and some other kind of fruit grow in warm areas.假如pineapples和coconuts是生词，我们可以从这两个词在句中所处的位置来判断它们大致的意思。从句中不难看出pineapples，coconuts和bananas，oranges是同类关系，同属fruit类，因此它们是两样水果，准确地说，是菠萝和椰子。

　　8. 通过描述猜词。

　　描述即作者为帮助读者更深更感性地了解某人或某物而对该人或该物做出的外在相貌或内在特征的描写。例如：

　　The penguin is a kind of sea bird living in the South Pole. It is fat and walks in a funny way. Although it cannot fly，it can swim in the icy water to catch the fish.

　　从例句的描述中可以得知penguin是一种生活在南极的鸟类。后面更详尽地描述了该鸟类的生活习性。