宜兴市周铁中学高三英语阅读理解微专题二轮复习④—词义猜测题

【考情分析】

根据上下文推断单词和短语的含义是高考阅读理解题6大出题方向之一，也是考查考生英语语言能力和文化品格的一种重要方式。

词义猜测题可以针对单词、短语的意思进行命题考查，还可以针对某一句子的准确理解或代词的精确指代进行设题。除了直接考查单词或短语词义猜测外，在阅读理解文章中，总会有一些单词或短语超出了《考试大纲》词汇表的范围，但又没有附加注释，也需要考生猜测，这也是对词义猜测的一种间接考查。例如在2017年全国卷Ⅰ阅读理解中，有部分超纲单词（如unifying, emotion和insight)给出了汉语注释，另外一部分超纲词汇(如recontextualization)却没有附加注释。

词义猜测题考查的范围主要在以下几个方面：生词、短语、熟词生义、句子和代词的指代。

 

【常见设问方式】

①What does the underlined word "..." in Paragraph...refer to?

②What does the underlined phrase "..." in Paragraph...refer to?

③What does the underlined word "..." in Paragraph...mean?

④What does the author mean by "..." in Paragraph...?

⑤Which of the following can replace the underlined word "..." in Paragraph...?

 

【解题技巧】
1.根据定义或上下文解释进行猜测

有时短文中出现一个需要猜测其意义的词或短语，下面接着出现其定义或解释。标点符号，如逗号后的解释(名词同位语)、破折号后的解释、括号内的解释等。这都是判断该词或短语意义的主要依据。例如：

①Annealing is a way of making metal softer by heating it and then letting it cool very slowly.

句子给予了annealing一个明确的定义，即“退火”。

②It will be very hard but also very brittle — that is, it will break easily.

从that is(也就是说)后的解释中我们可以了解到，brittle是“脆的”意思。

③The herdsman,_who looks after sheep, earns about 650 yuan a year.

定语从句中looks after sheep就表明了herdsman的词义为“牧人”。

④The weather in this area is treacherous;_its sudden changes often endanger the lives of sailors.

分号后的句子在解释什么样的天气是treacherous, sudden change与treacherous在语义上相对应，因此含义是“突变的”。

⑤Some good readers find it helpful to use their sense to visualize — or picture — what they read.

visualize的意思由破折号后的picture(想象)给出了说明，因此含义为“想象”。

⑥When President Torrijos of Panama met Carter, he tried to give him a friendly abrazo (hug)．

abrazo对大多数人来说都很陌生，但由括号内的hug(拥抱)，我们不难推测abrazo也是“拥抱”的意思。

 

典例1：

Soon afterwards, many of those people started settling down to become farmers, and their languages too became more settled and fewer in number. In recent centuries, trade, industrialisation, the development of the nation­state and the spread of universal compulsory education, especially globalisation and better communications in the past few decades, all have caused many languages to disappear, and dominant languages such as English, Spanish and Chinese are increasingly taking over.

29．Which of the following best explains “dominant” underlined in paragraph 2?

A．Complex.　　 　 　                      B．Advanced.

C．Powerful.                                        D．Modern.

 

 

2.根据同位关系进行猜测

阅读中出现的难词有时后面紧跟一个同位语，对前面的词进行解释，因此可利用同位关系对前面的词义或句意进行猜测。例如：

①They traveled a long way, at last got to a castle,_a large building in old times.

同位语部分“a large building in old times”给出了castle的确切词义，即古时候的“城堡”。

②We are on the night_shift — from midnight to 8 a．m. — this week.

两个破折号之间的短语很清楚地表明night shift是“夜班”的意思。

③The “Chunnel”， a tunnel (隧道) connecting England and France, is now complete.

此句中“a tunnel (隧道) connecting England and France”是Chunnel的同位语。因此，Chunnel指的就是英法之间的海底隧道。

 

典例2：

I am Peter Hodes, a volunteer stem cell courier. Since March 2012, I've done 89 trips — of those, 51 have been abroad. I have 42 hours to carry stem cells (干细胞) in my little box because I've got two ice packs and that's how long they last. In all, from the time the stem cells are harvested from a donor (捐献者) to the time they can be implanted in the patient, we've got 72 hours at most. So I am always conscious of time.

29．Which of the following can replace the underlined word “courier” in Paragraph 1?

A．provider                                          B．delivery man

C．collector                                          D．medical doctor

 

3.根据构词法(前缀、后缀、派生等)进行猜测

在英语中，有很多词可以通过增加前缀和后缀的方式，构成新词。乍看起来，这个词可能是新词，但在掌握了一定的构词知识之后，就不难猜出它的词义。例如：

①“Our parties are aimed for children 2 to 10，” Anaclerio said, “and they're very interactive and creative in that they built a sense of drama based on a subject.”

文中interactive是由前缀inter­(相互的)和active(活动的，活跃的)构成的，同时根据上下文的意思可以判断，该词的含义应是“互动的”。

②Perhaps, we can see some possibilities for next fifty years. But the next hundred?

possibility是possible的同根名词，据此可以判断possibility的意思是“可能性”。

 

典例3：

A silence in a conversation may also show stubbornness, uneasiness,_or worry.

[分析]　根据构词法知识我们可知，un­为否定前缀，­ness为名词后缀，easy(舒适)为词根。因此，我们可猜测uneasiness为“______________”之意。

 

4.根据因果关系进行猜测

在一篇阅读文章中，根据原因可以预测结果，根据结果也可以找出原因。例如：

①The lack of movement caused the muscles to weaken. Sometimes the weakness was permanent. So the player could never play the sport again.

从后面的结果“永远不能再运动”可以推测permanent的意思为“永远的，永久的”。

②Mary didn't notice me when I came into the classroom, because she was completely engrossed in her reading.

从前面的结果“当我走进教室时，玛丽没有注意到我”可以推测engrossed的意思为“全神贯注的”。

③Our vision was obscured by the trees, so we couldn't see the lake from our window.

由后面的结果couldn't see(看不见)可知，我们的视线被树遮挡住(obscured)了。

 

典例4：

If you have a_juicer,_you can simply feed in frozen bananas and some berries or sliced fruit. Out comes a “softserve” creamy dessert, to be eaten right away. This makes a fun activity for a children's party; they love feeding the fruit and frozen bananas into the top of the machine and watching the ice cream come out below.

26．What is “a juicer” in the last paragraph?

A．A dessert.                                              B．A drink.

C．A container.                                           D．A machine.

 

5.根据上下文的指代关系进行猜测

文章中的代词it, that, he, him或them可以指代上文提到的人或物，其中it和that还可以指代一件事。有时代词指代的对象相隔较远，要认真查找；有时也需要对前面提到的内容进行总结，才能得出代词所指代的事物。例如：

①Like Schmid, the editors of several self­published art magazines also champion (捍卫) found photographs. One of them,_called simply Found, was born one snowy night in Chicago, when Davy Rothbard returned to his car to find under his wiper (雨刷) an angry note intended for someone else：“Why's your car HERE at HER place？”

them指的是前面出现的self­published art magazines。

②However, the question that “moon people” asked is still an interesting one. A growing number of scientists are seriously thinking about it.

it指的是月球人(moon people)所问的问题(the question)。

 

典例5：

[2]Despite the celebrations, though, in the U．S.the jazz audience continues to shrink and grow older, and the music has failed to connect with younger generations.

[3]It's Jason Moran's job to help change that.As the Kennedy Center's artistic adviser for jazz, Moran hopes to widen the audience for jazz, make the music more accessible, and preserve its history and culture.

…

29．What does the underlined word “that” in paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Jazz becoming more accessible.

B．The production of jazz growing faster.

C．Jazz being less popular with the young.

D．The jazz audience becoming larger.

 

6.根据同义或近义关系进行猜测

在同一句、同一段或同一篇文章中，作者为了避免语言的单调、重复，有时会使用意思相同或相近的词。因此，考生只要读懂上下文，知道其中一个词的意思，就能猜出另外一个词的意思。

 

典例6：

Adults understand what it feels like to be flooded with objects. Why do we often assume that more_is_more when it comes to kids and their belongings? The good news is that I can help my own kids learn earlier than I did how to live more with less.

32．What do the words “more is more” in paragraph 1 probably mean?

A．The more, the better.

B．Enough is enough.

C．More money, more worries.

D．Earn more and spend more.

 

7.根据转折或对比关系进行猜测

根据上下句的连接词，如but, however, otherwise等可以推断上下文之间的逻辑关系，从而可以依据某一句的含义，来确定另一句的含义。另外，分号也可以表示转折、对比或不相干的意义。例如：

①A child's birthday party doesn't have to be a hassle;_it can be a basket of fun.

从分号前后两句的意思可以看出，hassle和a basket of fun是相反的意义，所以不难判断hassle的意思是“困难，麻烦”。

②She is usually prompt for all her class, but today she arrived in the middle of her first class.

but一词表示转折，因此but前后的意思正好相反。根据后半句的意思“她今天第一节课上了一半才来”，可得出她平时一向“准时”的结论。

③The players in the World Cup are professionals, while those who play in the Olympics must be amateurs.

由于转折词“while”引导的两个分句前后意义相反，我们可推测出amateurs是professionals(专业人士)的反义词，意思为“业余人士，业余选手”。

 

典例7：

Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.

…

29．What does the underlined word “displaced” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Tested.                                                  B．Separated.

C．Forced out.                                           D．Tracked down.