高考英语复习：运用上下文和构词法猜词

南开中学 段胜利

例三 “It’s important to let children experience the reality of death, if it can be done in an atmosphere of love and caring. A child whose sibling, parent or grandparent is seriously ill can be made to feel helpful by being allowed to run errands(跑腿). Even a very young child can comfort a sick loved one with a cheering visit.”

Judging from the passage, the underlined word “sibling” in the paragraph probably means .

A. friend B. brother or sister

C. cousin D. relative

答案B。猜测sibling这个词时，需要注意它是与parent or grandparent一起罗列出来的，这是通过列举归纳的方法来猜测词义的很好的例子。sibling, parent or grandparent都与孩子有亲属关系，从这样的列举我们不难推断sibling应当是“兄弟姐妹”。

例四 Johnson looked like a man wanted in Los Angeles for robbery, so the police detained him at San Pedro for the night.The next day, Johnson telephoned his friends in Los Angeles. They drove to San Pedro and made the police believe that Johnson was a harmless salesman, so they set him free.

The underlined word “detained” probably means __________.

A. caught B. controlled

C. kept D. hurt

答案C。detained前面出现了a man wanted(被通缉的人)，the police(警察局)；它的下面又出现了at San Pedro for the night(在San Pedro过一夜)，综合分析上下文的信息，应当是拘留，也就是用kept一词，注意不能用caught，这是个动作动词，表示“逮着了”，但不能说“逮着了一夜”。

例五 Jacob Blitzstein surprised his fellow students all the time. He isn’t some stuffy guy, though he wears his neat gray beard and conservative (traditional) clothes.

The word “stuffy” in the paragraph means _______.

A. old-fashioned

B. respectable

C. narrow-minded

D. fat

答案A。stuffy后面有一个though引导的让步状语从句，说明出现了反义信息，但是stuffy前面又有not，说明stuffy就是wears his neat gray beard and conservative (traditional) clothes传递出的信息，因此选择old-fashioned“传统的，守旧的”。

例六 If left to himself, he would have whistled ( 吹口哨) life away in perfect satisfaction; but his wife was always mad at him for his idleness (懒散). Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was endlessly going, so that he was forced to escape to the outside of the house ——the only side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband.

The underlined words “henpecked husband” in the paragraph probably means a man who______.

A. likes hunting

B. is afraid of hens

C. loves his wife

D. is afraid of his wife

答案D。henpecked husband是通过前文事例，最后做出的归纳。进行猜词时，要分析文段所描述的人物特点：自己待着，无拘无束，其乐融融；而他的妻子却总会为他的懒散而恼怒，整天唠叨他，结果他不得已跑出家去。这种表现明显的是“气管炎”，怕老婆。

[责任编辑:moninfu]