When you read in English, it is possible for you to meet words you are not familiar with. If you want to read efficiently, that requires the use of various problem-solving skills. For example, it is impossible for you to know the exact meaning of every word you read, but by developing your guessing ability, you will often be able to understand enough to arrive at the total meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or essay. Context clues are helpful for you to improve your ability to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words by using context clues. (Context refers to the sentence and paragraph in which a word occurs.) In using the context to decide the meaning of a word you have to use your knowledge of grammar and your understanding of the author’s ideas. Although there is no formula that you can memorize to improve your ability to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words, you should keep the following points in mind:

1.   Use the meaning of the other words in the sentence (or paragraph) and the meaning of the sentence as a whole to reduce the number of possible meanings.

2.        Use grammar and punctuation clues that point to the relationships among the various parts of the sentence.

3.        Be content with a general idea about the unfamiliar words; the exact definition or synonym is not always necessary.

4.        Learn to recognize situations in which it is not necessary to know the meaning of the words.