Students who say they never or hardly ever used dictionaries often speak English well but usually write poorly, because they make many mistakes. The students who use dictionaries the most do not learn especially well, either. The ones who looked up every new word do not read fast. Therefore they do not have time to read much. Those who use small two-language dictionaries have the worst problems. Their dictionaries often give only one or two words as a translation of English. But one English word often has many translations in a foreign language and one foreign word has many translations in English. The most successful students were those who use large college edition dictionaries with about 100, 000 words but do not use them too often. Whey they are reading, these students first try to get the general idea and understand new words from the context. Then they reread and use the dictionary to look up only key words that they still de not understand. They use dictionaries more for writing. If they are not sure how to spell a word, or divide it into syllables (音节) ,they always use a dictionary. Also if they think a noun might have an unusual plural or a verb might have an unusual past tense, they checked them in a dictionary. The writer tends to think that ______.