The _________ swim instructor kept repeating the same lesson.
A) dilatory
B) pernicious
C) superficial
D) irksome
E) boorish
请问童鞋们知道这道题的5个选项中的几个单词?是滴，就算对美国人，这也是一道在词汇上比较难的题。值得注意的是，这道题选项中的单词都是一些basic words加上前缀或者后缀变成的新的单词。所以如果我们能够掌握一些常见的前缀或者后缀的话，我们做题的时候就可以根据联系推测出一些词语的意思了。
"...ish"作为后缀通常是"...like"(像...)的意思。例如E选项中的boorish意思是"Boor-like",Boor是农民，粗鲁的人，那么boorish自然就是鲁莽顽固的意思了。
类似的，"super-"作为前缀通常是"very..."(很...);"ficial"作为前缀通常指的东西事物的表面，所以这道题中C选项是明显错误的答案。
再来看看选项D的irksome, 是由前缀"irk-"(去激怒，去扰动/to bother)和后缀"-some"(有...的倾向/tending to)组成的，所以意思基本上等于"bothersome."
由于游泳教练总是不停地重复同样的课，你可以称他"bothersome"(好烦啊，罗嗦)，所以irksome作为近义词是这道题正确的选项。
常见的前缀后缀：
SAT中常见的前缀
pre - before (hence pre-fix is a word that comes before)
super - very or over (super-impose means to impose over)
dis - not (dismembered means not membered or not together)
uni - one (unicameral means one house)
a - not (atypical means not typical)
ex - out (exhale means breathe out)
in - in (inhale means breathe in)
neo - new (neoconservative means new conservative)
post - after (postmodernism means after modernism)
circum - around (circumvent the world means travel around the world)
+ ben - good (benevolent, beneficial, benefactor, etc. all carry positive charge)
- mal - bad (malevolent, malnutrition, malice)
re - again (to review is to view again)
gen - birth (genealogy is study of family history)
chron - time (chronology is study of time sequence)
poly - many (polyunsaturated means many not saturated)
intra - within (intraspecies means within one species)
inter - between (interspecies means between different species)
ante - before (antebellum means before a war)
- hypo - too little (hypothermia means too low of body temperature)
- hyper - too much (hyperactive means too active)
SAT中常见的后缀
- ble: able or capable (doable, corruptible, edible)
- ous: full of (porous means full of pores, or in other words, easily transpired through)
- ant: full of (elegant means full of elegance)
- ose: full of (grandiose means full of grandeur, grand-ness)
- fy: to make like the prefix (magnify means make larger, terrify means to make scared)
- ate: to make like the prefix (procrastinate means to make a longer time)
- ile: tending to (puerile means tending to childish-ness)
- ism: belief (racism, sexism, nationalism, etc.)
- tude: condition of (magnitude means the quantity of magnification)
在掌握了单词中常见的前缀和后缀以后，我们就可以在SAT的阅读部分做得much better!! 来试试下面这道题吧~
His ___________ skill at playing football was why we put up with his ___________ attitude.
A. worthy ... positive
B. lacking ... conceited
C. considerable ... malicious
D. dominating ... benign
E. docile ... contemptuous
首先，我们考虑一下这个句子的语气。从"put up with"(忍受，容忍)可以看出来他的attitude是不好的，因为人们不需要去"put up with"一个好的态度。
其次，his skill was WHY they put up with his bad attitude. 所以他的skill 一定是好的，要不是人们也没有必要put up with his bad attitude. 因此，不难得知，第一个空格需要的是一个positive word,而第二个空格需要的是一个negative word.
在确定了单词的正负极以后，我们可以排除A和B选项，因为A选项中两个单词都是positive的，而B选项中两个单词都是negative的。
C)现在我们再来看看该怎么结合前缀来选择单词。mal-作为前缀意思是bad. malicious因此是bad-natured的意思。所以选项C中的第一个单词是positive的，第二个单词是negative的，可以作为后备正确选项。
D) dominating 在这句话中是有一个positive的意思的，指有lots of skilli,但是第二个单词"benign" 有前缀ben-, 有好的意思，因此不符合第二个单词需要时negative word的条加盟，所以D选项可以被排除。
E)docile在这里的意思是tending to sleep or dormant (有睡觉的趋势)，所以不是我们需要的 positive first word.
最后的最后，正确的选项浮出水面应该是C.
从上面的两道SAT填空题分析内容来看，掌握前后缀的详细含义是大家使用这个方法的关键与核心。大家在解答相关类型的SAT填空题的时候，可以提前记忆一些常见的前后缀，然后应用到题目的解答过程中去。
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