我们以2002年阅读第二篇文章为例：

The market investigation is indispensable to sales promotion. They are closely related as the lips and teeth, so to speak. What you produce is for sale on the market. It would be impossible to succeed in selling a product without first investigating the market.

In the international market, goods on sale coming from different countries and suppliers are always facing keen competition. Under such circumstances, they will try everything possible to familiarize themselves with the market conditions. In making investigations, we ought to get information about what similar items the competitors are offering on the market, what prices they are quoting (报价), what features their products have, who are their regular customers, etc. Then, how can we obtain such information? There are many channels that we can make use of in doing this sort of work. The commercial counselor's offices of our embassies stationed abroad can help us in making market investigations. Nowadays, our import and export corporations send their trade groups abroad every now and then. One of their purposes is to make market surveys on the spot.

Certainly, face-to-face talks with foreign businessmen are also important channels to get market information. The Chinese Export Commodities Fairs and some other fairs of similar nature as well as visits of foreign businessmen provide us with such opportunities. Of course , there are some other ways of making market investigations.

文章的第三题是词汇题。

The word "indispensable" in the first line means_____.

A. impossible　　B. essential　　C. advisable　　D. available

“indispensable ”在文章的段的行。从它后面的句子：“市场调查和促销的关系就像牙齿和嘴唇的关系一样紧密。”接着又说：“生产是为了销售，如果没有事先的市场调查，销售就不可能成功。”又根据所给的四个选项，B：必不可少的，必需的。合适。

以下介绍几种通过上下文推断词义的行之有效的方法.

1、标点符号是理解词义的一条重要线索,因为有些词的定义是通过标点符号,如破折号，括号,冒号等来完成的.如:

Sometimes we work on night shift—— from 11:30 p . m to 7:30 a.m

从破折号后的说明，我们可以断定“night shift”是“夜班”的意思。

2、有些信号词如：is called, means, that is, is, or, define as, refer to 等通常是针对某一词汇的定义、解释或说明。如：

One sort of crimes which particularly worries people is juvenile delinquency，that is, crimes committed by young people.

从that is的解释来看,我们可以断定“juvenile delinquency”即 “青少年犯罪”。

3、举例可以帮助我们理解词义。对于有些重要的词汇，作者常在词后自带解释或例子。因此，根据例子可猜出词义。如：

You may select any of these periodicals ：Time Magazine, Newsweek, Reader′s Digest or The New Yorker.

从后边列举的时代周刊、新闻周刊等流行期刊，我们可以断定“periodical”即“期刊杂志”。

4、靠形成反差、对照的词或词组猜出词义。常见的这些词或词组有while, whereas, unlike, but, yet, although, however, in contrast, on the other hand, rather than 等。如：

Jane was talking with others while Eliza remained reticent all the time.

文章的while作“而，却”解，由此我们可以断定“reticent”作“沉默寡言的”解。

5、凭借常识和经验猜测词义。如：

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

只要你知道so that这个结构，凭借常识就应猜出“lintel”的意思是“过梁，上门梁”。

6、根据构词法来猜测词义。熟悉英语词汇的构词法，特别是派生词的构成方法及词义，可以帮助我们在阅读过程中有效地猜测词义，提高阅读速度，准确答题。

考生应特别注意英语词缀的某些特点。如，一般来说前缀只增加或改变一个词的意义，但并不改变其词性。例如：supermarket(超市)，foretell (预言)，dissatisfied(不满意的)uncomfortably(不舒服地)等。而后缀不但可以增加或改变一个词的意义，而且改变其词性。如washable变动词“洗”为形容词“可洗的”，normalize变形容词“正常的”为动词“使……正常化”，beginner变动词“开始”为名词“初学者”，childless则由名词“小孩”变为形容词“无子女的”。只要知道词根的意义，又熟悉前缀和后缀表示的意义，就不难判断这些词的词义。

(5) 询问作者写作目或态度的常见提问方式及答题技巧

作者的语气态度往往不会直接写在文章里，只能通过细读文章，从作者的选词及其修饰手段中体会出来。这种题型常见的提问形式有：

The author seems _____.

The author's tone in this passage is _____.

The purpose of the author in writing this passage is _____.

The author's intention in writing the passage is to _____.

The writer probably feels that _____.

In the author's opinion, _____.

这类考题中，询问语气态度的题，选择项里常出现以下一些重要的词：sympathetic 同情的；critical批评的; doubtful怀疑的；objective客观的；enthusiastic热情的，matter-of-fact实事求是的；hostile 敌对的；satisfied满意的；friendly友好的；indifferent冷淡的；subjective主观的；optimistic乐观的；pessimistic悲观的；disappointed失望的；neutral中立的。

询问写作目的的题，选择项里常出现的词是：

explain解释；persuade劝说；comment评论；

criticize批评；interest引起……的注意或兴趣；

entertain使欢乐；argue辩论；demonstrate举例说明，示范；

tell讲述；prove 证明；urge激动；advise劝告；analyze分析；

praise赞扬，view看待,等等。

例：

One bright spot in the U.S. economy in 1979 was the surprising decline in gasoline use. Rising fuel costs are finally prodding Americans to cut back on consumption, and the need for this becomes more acute all the time.

有关作者态度或观点的问题是：

How does the author view the decline in gas consumption?

A. He is indifferent.　　B. He thinks it is a good sign.

C. He doesn't see the need for it.　　D. He is unhappy about it.

作者把“the decline in gas consumption”描述为“one bright spot in the U.S economy”，可见答案应该是B.

除了要掌握基本的阅读方法和前面讲到的应试技巧以外，要想在规定的时间内，既能准确又能快速地回答好所有问题，考生还应注意以下几点：

1、考生应针对文章的不同题材和题型，选择不同的阅读方法。有时需要先浏览文章，后看题目；有时则不然。但通常情况下，应首先确定文章的主旨或主题，然后再审读问题。在绝大多数情况下我们的答题步骤应该是(1)预先快速浏览题干和每段首句，确定哪些是重点和相关因素，知道所设问题的类型，做到心中有数。(2)快速阅读文章，了解文章大意和重点，尽快扫描，读到与刚才所记住的与题干有关的内容，先用铅笔做些记号，快速在答案中选出一个临时答案，然后继续阅读。(3)用快速度重读问题，找出心中已经有把握的答案位置。再阅读一遍该段有关材料，尽快答完有把握的问题。对那些尚未作答的题目，再用上述方法一口气重读一遍文章，这次应找出更微妙的线索，集中精力解决难题。

2、一般来说，除了主旨及推论型题目以外，题目顺序与文章的情节发展是一致的，因此应按题目顺序解题。

3、文章较难时，不必紧张，根据语言学科的测试规律，如果文章难则问题比较简单。只要能很好地应用阅读技巧，就不难找到正确答案。另外，文章偏长也不一定就难，因为在较长的篇幅中，其词汇，句子结构的复杂程度要相对容易些。

4、阅读过程中，可以在文章或问题旁空白处做些记号，也可以对一些与答题有关的词句划线。还可以标出一些关键词，尤其是文章的论点、论据及一些有关事实，以避免遗忘或回顾时浪费时间。

5、回答问题时不能按照个人的主观臆断，回答问题的根据应该建立在阅读文章的基础上。