笔者曾看到一本帮助大家按照话题分类来罗列词汇的词汇书。立意很好，把杂乱零散的词汇分好了类别再让大家来看，效率就高了。然而，这样的词汇书虽然很不错，但也是存在一些微小的疏忽的，比如crater, 被编者放在了地质话题里，很合理，但是给的意思却让人诧异，作者给出的意思是：“弹坑”，让我感觉分明是个军事词汇。然而其在托福阅读里最多见的意思就是“撞击坑“、“火山口”，有时也可以表示动词“在…上形成坑”。这几个意思如果不罗列出来，那么一本立意很好、包装又精美的词汇书，就始终让人略感遗憾了。这里就涉及到英语词汇里的一个常见问题了——理解偏差。
所以，本篇就一些在托福阅读中常见却又容易让刚入门的学生产生理解偏差的情况，试图做一番归纳，以减轻学生自学的负担。
序号 | 词汇 | 理解上的偏差 | 例句与出处 |
与逻辑有关 | |||
1 | and | 会误解为“并且”，实际上还可理解为“因此、所以”，只要看出“and”左右两边的事情不是同时发生就可明白意思。 | As a result of crustal adjustments and faulting, the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean now connects to the Atlantic, opened, and water cascaded spectacularly back into the Mediterranean. (TPO7 The Geologic History of the Mediterranean) |
2 | in turn | 会误以为是字典里的头条注释：“反过来”。实际上可以理解为“接着会…（发生）…” | The conventional theory is that people yawn when bored or sleepy because yawning raises blood oxygen levels, which in turn raises alertness. (TPO18 The mystery of yawning) |
3 | allow | 往往会理解为是“允许”，其实常见的是指“使…可能发生”，带有因果逻辑在里面。 | Within the turtle's flippers, there is a countercurrent exchange system that allows colder blood vessels to absorb heat from nearby warmer blood vessels and then return warmed blood to the turtle's body. (TPO15 A Warm-Blooded Turtle) |
4 | permit | 同上，也存在“使有可能”的释义，且确实在托福阅读里较常见。 | Extracting heat from very hot, dry rocks presents a more difficult problem: the rocks must be fractured to permit the circulation of water, and the water must be provided artificially. The rocks are fractured by water pumped down at very high pressures. (TPO21 Geothermal Energy) |
5 | responsible | 说起“负责”，其实本身就有“导致”的意思，比如机场爆炸案，恐怖组织宣布“负责”，意思就是“我导致的，我造成的”，并非是常见的涉及“关爱”的那种“负责”，这个和日常交流带来的理解偏差有关系。 | Higher temperatures and pressures promote sedimentation, which is responsible for petroleum formation. (TPO4 Petroleum Resources) |
6 | yet | 作为连词，应该要理解为“但是”。 | Of course, the contrast is not quite so stark: in Alexander the Great the Greeks had found the greatest territorial conqueror of all time; and the Romans, once they moved outside Italy, did not fail to learn the lessons of sea power. Yet the essential difference is undeniable. (TPO7 Ancient Rome and Greece) |
7 | account for | 根据个人实际教学，“（比例上）占…”与“解释”这两个意思，很多人只知道任意一个。 | #Heavy rain accounts for most of the water that enters into lakes. (TPO24 Lake Water) #Scientists will not be able to account for climate changeover the past century until they learn more about the urban heat island. (TPO48 Climate and Urban Development) |
8 | suggest | 在托福里，真的很少见到“建议”这种说法，倒是往往与下结论有关，可理解为“表明”。 | Timberline trees are normally evergreens, suggesting that these have some advantage over deciduous trees (those that lose their leaves) in the extreme environments of the upper timberline. (TPO1 Timberline Vegetation on Mountains) |
9 | though | 若是副词，就该理解为“然而”，可是多数人不明此事，老师在课上应该多强调这种看似简单其实会导致理解有误的词汇。 | If true, though, why did cold-blooded animals such as snakes, lizards, turtles, and crocodiles survive the freezing winters and torrid summers? (TPO8 Dinosaur Extinctions) |
话题词汇 | |||
10 | precipitation | 据个人观察，除了常见的“沉淀”，学生易忽略“降水”的意思。 | Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. (TPO1 Ground Water) |
11 | game | “野生猎物”的意思初学者几乎全军覆没。 | They had experienced great difficulty finding game west of the Rockies and not until the second of December did they kill their first elk. (TPO4 Deer Populations of the Puget Sound) |
12 | mine | “矿”的意思有三分之一的人不清楚。 | This scenario begins with the planting of hyperaccumulating species in the target area, such as an abandoned mine or an irrigation pond contaminated by runoff. (TPO5 Plants and Minerals) |
13 | crater | 托福阅读里多数都是指“撞击坑”或者“火山口”。 | The Mariner spacecraft found that the surface of Mars, as well as that of its two moons, is pitted with impact craters formed by meteoroids falling in from space. (TPO25 The Surface of Mars) |
14 | solution | 除了“解决方案”，还要知道“溶液”也是常见说法。 | Mineral deficiencies in many plants can be cured by misting their roots with a nutrient solution or by transferring the plants to a soilless nutrient solution. (TPO5 Plants and Minerals) |
15 | plate | 哪能只知道“盘子”的意思？还要知道“板块”之意。 | Some plates carry islands or continents others form the seafloor. All are slowly moving because the plates float on a denser semi-liquid mantle, the layer between the crust and Earth’s core. (TPO27 The Formation of Volcanic Islands) |
16 | current | “洋流、电流、气流”等，常客了。 形容词词性的注释却更为人所知晓。 | The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. (TPO1 Ground Water) |
17 | chemical | 名词表示化学物质。约一半的人不清楚。 | The Biological Approach. Numerous biological structures and chemicals appear to be involved in aggression. (Official Guide Aggression) |
18 | browse | “觅食”这个意思，在托福阅读里其实不算很多见，但是比大家熟知的“浏览”要多见。 | Where the forest inhibits the growth of grass and other meadow plants, the black-tailed deer browses on huckleberry, salal, dogwood, and almost any other shrub or herb. But this is fair-weather feeding. (TPO4 Deer Populations of the Puget Sound) |
19 | tension | 除了“紧张”，还有“张力”，文本里有时候会给解释。 | It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. (TPO1 Ground Water) |
20 | grain | 可以衍生出“颗粒”的意思。 | A few chondrules contain grains that survived the melting event, so these enigmatic chondrules must have formed when compact masses of nebular dust were fused at high temperatures—approaching 1,700 degrees Celsius—and then cooled before these surviving grains could melt. (TPO22 The Allende Meteorite) |
21 | impact | 除了“影响”，不能不知道“冲击、撞击”。 | In view of these facts, scientists hypothesized that a single large asteroid, about 10 to 15 kilometers across, collided with Earth, and the resulting fallout created the boundary clay. Their calculations show that the impact kicked up a dust cloud that cut off sunlight for several months, inhibiting photosynthesis in plants; decreased surface temperatures on continents to below freezing… (TPO8 Dinosaur Extinctions) |
22 | setting | 不仅仅是“设置”，还要知道“背景阅读全文 -->
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