以上三种答案是我们听到最多的，当然我们肯定不能“懵逼”(虽然这是你们的常态)，当然我们在备考期间一定要好好背单词(单词都是背出来的，看看你的单词书，是不是还是很新?别跟我说你爱惜书，面壁去!)但是当我们走上考场的时候，遇到了不认识的单词怎么办?“猜?”没错，就是“猜!”但是不能盲目瞎猜，那么今天老师就给你讲讲该怎么“猜”单词!
呃…确切地说，是推断单词含义，文化人怎么说“猜”!
雅思官方明确说明了雅思考试不考察“记忆力”而是考察“语言的驾驭能力”，也就是说，光靠“背”是不可以滴(所以口语写作的模板被考官发现后会扣分很重哦)!
那么阅读考试中，何为“语言驾驭能力的考察”呢?其实就是看看你能否在陌生语境下联系上下文来理解文字的含义。在学术英语中，有很多小的tricks可以帮助到我们，下面我们具体来看看吧。
1.利用词根词缀
相信很多同学是了解这个方法的，因为“词根词缀记忆单词”这个东东已经被人们鼓吹了很多年了，从老师还是个稚嫩少年的时候就已经听说过这个方法了(那个时候菊花还只是一种花)。实际上，词根词缀法是一个很好地在阅读中猜词的方法。同学们在备考阅读的时候需要掌握一些常见的词缀用以猜词意或判断方向性。我们来看下面的例子(第24题)：
题目：
23 Home medical aids
24 Regular amounts of exercise
25 Feelings of control over life
26 Feelings of loneliness
A may cause heart disease.
B can be helped by hormone treatment.
C may cause rises in levels of stress hormones.
D have cost theUnited Statesgovernment more than $200 billion.
E may help prevent mental decline.
F may get stronger at night.
G allow old people to be more independent.
H can reduce stress in difficult situations.
原文：
Maintaining a level of daily physical activity may help mental functioning, says Carl Cotman, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Irvine. He found that rats that exercise on a treadmill have raised levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor coursing through their brains. Cotman believes this hormone, which keeps neurons functioning, may prevent the brains of active humans from deteriorating.
分析：
利用题干中的信息(regular amounts of exercise)定位到原文(daily physical activity)，进而对该段文字进行阅读，发现最后的deteriorate不认识，但是以de-前缀开头，一般都是否定的方向，那么与第五个选项中的decline方向一致，可以确定E为正确答案。
2. 利用并列关系
阅读中常见的并列关系词有and, or等，并列关系前后连接的词往往具有一定的一致性。我们这里拿or来举个例子，or前后的词常常含义是近似的。因此，如果or连接的前后的词我们有一个不认识，那么可以利用另一个来猜单词。我们来看下面的例子：
例句：
However, the major problems of the travel and tourism industry that have hidden, or obscured, its economic impact are the diversity and fragmentation of the industry itself.
分析：
本句话中，很多同学是不认识obscure的，但是我们一般都认识前面的hidden，并且发现这两个单词由or连接，所以可以推断obscure的意思跟hidden是比较接近的。
杨帆老师有话说：
阅读考察的是单词的模糊理解而非具体含义，所以很多单词我们了解大概意思、保证阅读可以顺利进行下去即可，不用弄明白确切意思。
3.利用同位语
阅读中我们常会看到一个不认识的名词后跟随了一个逗号，逗号后是一个名词短语，这个名次短语就是这个名词的同位语解释。我们可以利用同位语去推测未知名词的含义。我们来看下面的例子
【题目】
Marie and Pierre Curie’s research into the radioactivity of the mineral known as 8……… led to the discovery of two new elements.
【原文】
Turning her attention to minerals, she found her interest drawn to pitchblende, a mineral whose radioactivity, superior to that of pure uranium, could be explained only by the presence in the ore of small quantities of an unknown substance of very high activity. Pierre Curie joined her in the work that she had undertaken to resolve this problem, and that led to the discovery of the new elements, polonium and radium.
【分析】
通过观察题目，我们发现我们要填的单词处在“a mineral known as ...”这个结构下，说明要填的单词是一种矿物质的名字。那么利用题目中的two new elements定位到原文中，再利用代词往前查找，会找到pitchblende这个词，后面就跟随了我们说的同位语，那么可以确定这就是要我们找的答案。
题目：
我们来看看第6题：
原文：
The original patent outlined a three-stage process, in which phenol and formaldehyde (from wood or coal) were initially combined under vacuum inside a large egg-shaped kettle. The result was a resin known as Novalak, which became soluble and malleable when heated. The resin was allowed to cool in shallow trays until it hardened, and then broken up and ground into powder. Other substances were then introduced: including fillers, such as woodflour, asbestos or cotton, which increase strength and moisture resistance, catalysts (substances to speed up the reaction between two chemicals without joining to either) and hexa, a compound of ammonia and formaldehyde which supplied the additional formaldehyde necessary to form a thermosetting resin.
分析：
很多同学在做这道题时，利用第6题前面的ammonia和formaldehyde定位，在原文中第4句中，我们看到了一个a compound of ammonia and formaldehyde …这个结构，于是就有同学把答案写成了compound。但是我们来看一下，a compound of ammonia and formaldehyde …就是我们之前说的“双标点中的名词短语”，所以它是一个同位语，那么是对谁的解释呢?逗号之前的名词hexa，所以hexa是我们的答案(原文的意思是hexa是ammonia和formaldehyde一起构成的混合物)。至于为什么不能填compound这个词，这是一个解释性的词汇，属于“类别”词，不够具体，而填空题需要填具体的词。
