同義詞線索
I did not have a roll on my plate, but I do not like bread very much anyway.
從句子的后半部分可以看出，說話人不喜歡面包，可見roll也是一種面包。通過bread這個詞，可以猜出roll的詞義。
One night Mrs Rochester succeeded in setting the house on fire. Mr Rochester managed to lead the servants to safety and then went back into the burning mansion to rescue his wife.
第二個句子中的mansion是生詞。從前后兩個句子來看，我們不難發現mansion指的就是第一句中的house.
環境線索
We are glad that we live near the ocean because we love to eat flounder.
如果單從“我們愛吃flounder”這部分，無法判斷它的意思，而前面提到the ocean，則可以判斷出flounder是一種魚類或水產品。
She read my letter slowly to the end and then tore it to shreds.
這個句子中的shreds是生詞。但我們從整句來理解，“她慢慢地把我的信看完，然后把它撕成……”，從“撕成……”，我們可以猜出shreds是“碎片”的意思。
用途線索
We like our new house because it has a few elms in the back yard that will give us shade and keep the house cooler.
通過elms的作用，能有陰涼使房屋涼爽些，我們可以猜測出elms是一種樹。
Fishes live in water and have fins which help them to swim.
運用生活常識就能較為確切地判斷出fins的詞義是“鰭”。
因果關系線索
She can‘t play tennis now because she can’t find her white sneakers.
由于找不到這個“白色的sneakers”，所以無法打網球。可見sneakers是一種和打網球有關的東西。而從white和sneakers這個詞的復數形式看，你也許已經猜出它們意思是“球鞋”了。
The lack of movement caused the muscles to weaken. Sometimes the weakness was permanent. So the player could never play the sport again.
從后面的結果“永遠不能再運動”中，可以推測出 permanent的意思是“永久的”。
對比線索
She is usually prompt for all her classes, but today she arrived in the middle of her first class.
but表示意思的轉折，因此可以看出but前后的意思是相反的。后半句說，她今天在第一節課上了一半時才來。反推回去，她平時應該是一向“準時”的了。
The pain on the cottage had peeled in a few places, otherwise they looked well kept.
句中peel可從otherwise后面的對比猜出是“脫落”之意。
說明線索
Ann is very smart. She always knows the answers to all the teachers‘questions.
第二句是對前一句的補充說明。一個能回答老師所有問題的女孩，Ann一定是很“聰明”的。
Capacitance, or the ability to store electric charge, is one of the most common characteristics of electronic circuits.
由后半句的解釋我們很快猜出生詞capacitance詞義——電容量。
順序線索
After Ms Ellis put the letters in the envelope, she sealed it and put a stamp on it.
在發信時，先把信裝入信封，封上口，然后貼上郵票，是合理的順序，通過前后動作，不難看出seal是“封口”的意思。
接下來我們再做個練習，請看下面的文段：
After we had travelled for about twenty miles, there was still no sign of the town which was marked on the map. We were beginning to get worried. Then, without warning, the car stopped. A quick examination showed that we had run out of petrol. Although we had little food with us, only a few biscuits and some chocolate, we decided to spend the night in the car.
這一段中，假設petrol和biscuit兩個詞是生詞，但我們可以從句子的前后文中推斷出這兩個詞的意思。如文中提到汽車在沒有任何出毛病的先兆時就突然停了，文中又有run our of——“用完”這個詞組，因此可以推斷出一定是汽油用完了，從而petrol的意思即可推測出。下邊的biscuit是生詞，但這一句的前半句提到了we had little food with us，biscuit和chocolate都是進一步補充說明是什么樣的food，由此可見，這兩樣東西是“食品”。這時我們已經明白了大致的意思，不查詞典，也不妨礙我們理解文章的意思。因此，就可以繼續讀下去，有時讀到后面，又會發現前面出現的生詞的意思在后面有了解釋。(滬江英語)