對于詞匯題，可能很多同學(xué)覺得這哪有什么技巧啊，就各種背單詞唄，的確，單詞量不僅僅是做此類題的重要基礎(chǔ)，更是做好所有閱讀題的基礎(chǔ)，但就詞匯題本身而言，還是有一定的技巧和方法在里面的，下面我們就來說一說詞匯題。
【例題】
Many things make people think artists are weird and the weirdest may be this: artists' only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad。
This wasn't always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere in the 19th century, more artists began seeing happiness as insipid, phony or, worst of all, boring as we went from Wordsworth's daffodils to Baudelaire's flowers of evil。
You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen such misery. But it's not as if earlier times didn't know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today。
After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology。
People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in peril and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer
too。
Today the messages your average Westerner is bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since these messages have an agenda--to lure us to open our wallets to make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. "Celebrate!" commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks。
But what we forget——what our economy depends on is forgetting——is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need someone to tell us as religion once did, Memento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It's a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air。
【問題】
The word “bummer” (Line 5. paragraph 5) most probably means something
A. religious B. unpleasant C. entertaining D. commercial
【解析】
題干和選項譯文：
第五段第五行的“bummer”在文中最可能是指某種事物 。
A。有宗教性的 B。令人不愉快的 C。有娛樂性的 D。有商業(yè)性的
答案：B
本題定位信息明確，首先定位到第五段最后一句：Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too。根據(jù)all this往前定位：前面幾句都在說已經(jīng)有很多事情在提醒苦難(exhausted, few protections, died young, in danger, become meat for worms);再定位到此段第一句：People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery。(早期的人們被苦難的提醒包圍著。)結(jié)合因果關(guān)系：given(因為)早起的人們被苦難的提醒物包圍，所以不需要藝術(shù)再成為和苦難或痛苦相關(guān)的東西了。所以C和D很容易排除，A選項可能會受到第三行句子的干擾，…the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers…有考生將bummer同church相對應(yīng)得出“宗教的”答案，但是這里的church起的不是宗教的作用而是苦難提醒者的作用。
【方法總結(jié)】
通過練習(xí)大家也大概能看出來，考博英語閱讀理解的詞匯題并不僅僅是有詞匯量就可以做對的，在做題的時候一定要根據(jù)文章的上下文來考慮，“詞無本義，義由境生”，如果說就著單詞本義的話，是十有八九要碰壁的，況且很多時候我們往往對單詞本義不了解，那么根據(jù)上下文和段落大意來推斷也是完全有可能拿下詞匯題的。
不同的題型有不同的應(yīng)對方法，但對于考博英語閱讀的復(fù)習(xí)卻是應(yīng)對不同題型的通用法寶，不管是詞匯、長難句的積累，還是語感的把握，都能為不同解題方法的實施更好地奠定基礎(chǔ)，大家一定要雙管齊下，才能在考場上出奇制勝。