托福阅读猜词方法1.根据举例猜测词义

After breakfast, many people go to church;but the children will be playing with their new toys, and the mother willprobably be preparing the Christmas dinner. This includes poultry for the maincourse (e.g. chicken, turkey, duck, goose), salads, breads, and vegetable, andfeatures a variety of desserts, for example, pies, puddings, and ice cream.

“chicken, turkey, duck, goose”同属“poultry：家禽”。

托福阅读猜词方法2.根据对比关系猜测词义

Jane was talking with others while Elizaremained reticent all the time.

“while”是一个显示对比的信号词，“reticent”与“talking”相对应，“reticent”：沉默的。

Most of us agreed; however, Bill dissented.

“agreed”与“dissented”形成对比。

托福阅读猜词方法3.根据比喻关系猜测词义

The hot-air balloon took off. It was asbuoyant in the air as a cork (软木塞) in water.

把热气球比作水中的软木塞，说明“buoyant ”的意义：“漂浮;浮力。”

托福阅读猜词方法4.根据同义词的替代猜测词义

Venus rotates retrograde, or “backwards”, spinningin the opposite direction of its orbit around the Sun.

由“backwards”这一替代词得知“retrograde”的意思：“向后的。”

托福阅读猜词方法5.有时也可根据一般性常识/生活经验猜测词义

The door was so low that I hit my head onthe lintel.

门太低，我的头撞在“lintel门楣”上了。

He got on the motorbike, I sat behind himon the pillion, and we roared off into the night.

由经验得知“pillion”是motorbike的“后座、后鞍。”

托福阅读猜词方法6.也可根据词形构造猜测词义

More recently, scientists have documentedan alarmingly high occurrence of frogs with malformations.

form是词根, formation“形式”，mal-:构词前缀，可表示“坏、恶、不良”，还可表示“不、不正常、不当、非法。”malformation的意思就应该是“畸形。”更多的例子如：malnutrition: 营养不良;malconduct:(公职人员的)胡作非为;maladjustive: 引起失调的;不利调节的。

托福阅读猜词方法7.根据定义、解释猜测词义

We all know that ants are ferocious eaters.They differ widely in their diets and may be carnivorous, herbivorous, oromnivorous, meaning that some eat meat; others eat only plants while others eata combination of both.

由后面的解释我们可以得知：“carnivorous”的意思是“食肉的”;“herbivorous”的意思是“食草的”;“omnivorous”的意思是“杂食的”。

托福阅读猜词方法8.根据复述(同位语、定语等)猜测词义

Today, I’d like to talk aboutsome of the changes land can undergo, specifically desertification, processthrough which land becomes part of a desert.

后面的同位语告诉我们“desertification”的意思是“沙漠化。”

Since the fossil of the Anchaeopteryx, thefirst‘bird’, was discovered in Germany in 1861, there has been continuousdisagreement as to whether or not it could actually fly.

Anchaeopteryx—the first bird:“始祖鸟”

其实，托福阅读的目的在于获得整个句子、整个段落、乃至整个篇章的思想，而不是各个孤立的词汇的意义。托福阅读考试中，考查的是考生对段落中心思想整体把握的能力，只要能获得阅读材料的主要信息，并随后能用自己的话加以陈述，一两个生词不会有什么大碍。