2014年考研英语破解词义之法

 　　在考研英语复习备考过程中，遇到生词怎么办?许多人选择直接翻阅字典。也正是因此，很多考生在考试的时候遇到生词就不知所措，因为考场上不会允许你携带字典进入。所以，在平常的复习中，我们就要养成良好的学习习惯，翻阅字典并没有错，但是在翻阅字典之前，不妨结合前后语境进行推测、判断其词义。

　　利用各种已知信息推测、判断词义是一项重要的阅读技巧。在实践中，我们可以灵活运用，综合运用下面提到的几种猜测技巧，排除生词的障碍，顺利理解文章的思想内容，提高阅读速度。

　　同时，考生们也应该避免以下两种情况：第一，考生往往会随便猜一个选项，错误率很高。第二种情况下，考生往往落入命题专家的陷阱，不知不觉地失了分，原因是考生并没有掌握阅读词汇题的基本命题原则。在阅读部分的词汇题要考的并不是考生认不认识题中所考的单词，否则便是命题失效。此处要考的是考生阅读中的推断能力，也就是说题中所考单词的词义必定能根据上下文推断出来。所以考生在遇到阅读中的词汇题时，一定要冷静，去上下文中细找，推断出词义后，可将词义代入原文看是否通畅。

　　例如2003年第54题：

　　Railroads justify rate discrimination against captive shippers on the grounds that in the long run it reduces everyone’s cost. If railroads charged all customers the same average rate, they argue, shippers who have the option of switching to trucks or other forms of transportation would do so, leaving remaining customers to shoulder the cost of keeping up the line. It’s a theory to which many economists subscribe, but in practice it often leaves railroads in the position of determining which companies will flourish and which will fail. “Do we really want railroads to be the arbiters of who wins and who loses in the marketplace?” asks Martin Bercovici, a Washington lawyer who frequently represents shippers.

　　The word “arbiters” most probably refers to those_________.

　　[A] who work as coordinators

　　[B] who function as judges

　　[C] who supervise transactions

　　[D] who determine the price

　　该题的解题关键在于是否知道arbiters后的介宾短语of who wins and who loses in the marketplace就是对该词的比较准确定义，依据该介宾短语，不难得出arbiters是决定谁输谁赢的人，四个选项中只有B选项和这个意思比较为接近。

　　再例2004年第43题：

　　For any job search, you should start with a narrow concept—what you think you want to do—then broaden it. “None of these programs do that,” says another expert. “There's no career counseling implicit in all of this.” Instead, the best strategy is to use the agent as a kind of tip service to keep abreast of jobs in a particular database; when you get E-mail, consider it a reminder to check the database again. “I would not rely on agents for finding everything that is added to a database that might interest me,” says the author of a job-searching guide.

　　The expression “tip service” most probably means .

　　[A] advisory

　　[B] compensation

　　[C] interaction

　　[D] reminder

　　该题的解题关键在于充分利用分号，分号前面的短语use the agent as a kind of tip service和分号后的consider it a reminder属于并列关系，it和the agent都是指的文章中所说的搜索代理，自然我们就找到了tip service的同义词reminder。所以该题答案D