[例1] Children often try to emulate or copy the behavior that hey see on television。
[解析] 此句中，emulate可能是一生词，但其后or引出了它的同义词，copy的意思为 “抄写；仿效”，那emulate的含义就不难推测了。
[例2] The village was depopulated, most of the resident dead or moved, but the livestock remained untouched。
[解析] 如果大部分村民已亡故或迁徙，那么村庄只能是 “人烟稀少的”。
真题演练：
Drugs (substances) that affect the central nervous system and alter perception, mood, and behavior are known as psychoactive substances. Psychoactive substances are commonly grouped according to whether they are stimulants, depressants, or hallucinogens. Stimulants initially speed up or activate the central nervous system, whereas depressants slow it down. Hallucinogens have their primary effect on perception, distorting and altering it in a variety of ways including producing hallucinations. These are the substances often called psychedelic (from the Greek word meaning “mind-manifesting”) because they seemed to radically alter one’s state of consciousness. (1997)
在阅读的过程中，读者有时可根据自己的生活经验、普通常识和逻辑推理来推测生词的词义。读者的知识面越广，阅历越深，猜词的能力就越强，成功率也就越大。
[例1] If you are capable of working twelve hours a day without a rest, and if you can engage in physical exercise for hours without seeming to get tired, then you are indefatigable。
[解析] 根据上下文分析，如果一个人能连续工作12个小时，能进行体育锻炼数小时而不知疲倦，那么，这个人一定是一个不知疲倦的人，indefatigable的词义就不难猜测了。
[例2] Even the gifted teacher had difficulty making clear to the secondary school classes such an abstruse subject as Einstein's theory of relativity。
[解析] 从常识来看，Einstein's theory of relativity (爱因斯坦的相对论) 对中学生来讲肯定是难以接受的。因此abstruse的意思可以推测为 “难解的，深奥的”。
真题演练：
Science has long had an uneasy relationship with other aspects of culture. Think of Galileo’s 17th century trial for his rebelling belief before the Catholic Church or poet William Blake’s harsh remarks against the mechanistic worldview of Isaac Newton. The schism between science and the humanities has, if anything deepened in this century. (1998)
59. The word “schism” (Line 4, Paragraph 1) in the context probably means ________。
[A] confrontation [B] dissatisfaction [C] separation [D] contempt
