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Answers to Exam Tips - Part 1

Last week I posted a blog about part 3 of the Use of English exam, word formation. As promised, I’ve filled in the gaps with the correct word; there are explanations below this text to help you understand how to form the right word. So now it’s time to find out how well you did.


If you wish to see the original blog please click here. 

You need to use the word at the end of each line to form a word that fits in the space in the same line.  There is an example at the beginning (0).  Write your words in the spaces provided.

(0) Relatively

My class is (0) relatively small, there are only 6 students; 3 men and 3 women   RELATIVE
with a good mix of different (1) nationalities.  Some of them have been     NATION
learning English since their (2)
childhood, others have only taken it up in  CHILD
recent years.  However, they all understand the importance of (3) grammatical  GRAMMAR
accuracy and we’ve spent a lot of time learning various word (4)
beginnings and   BEGIN
(5) endings, known as prefixes and suffixes.  The best way to tackle this task     END
is to read the whole text and then figure out what type of word is (6) suitable  SUIT
This could be a verb, noun, adjective or adverb.  Once your (7) decision   DECIDE
is made then you need is see if it is (8) necessary to make the word negative   NEED
by adding a (9) suitable prefix or make it plural by adding an ‘s’ to the word.       SUIT
(10) Unfortunately, my students found this difficult at first but now after learning   FORTUNE
the various affixes that are needed to change words they are hoping to get at
least 8 out of 10 in this part of the paper.

(0) This adjective changes to an adverb by adding a suffix.  ‘ly’ endings are nearly always adverbs.  Adverbs can describe adjectives as well as verbs.
(1)  This noun changes to a plural noun by adding different suffix and an ‘s’, it is quite common in English to have more than one noun made from the same ‘root’
(2)  This noun also changes to a noun by adding a suffix.
(3)  This noun changes to an adjective by adding a suffix.
(4)  This verb changes to a plural noun by adding a suffix and an ‘s’.
(5)  This verb (which is also a noun) changes to a plural noun by adding a suffix and an ‘s’.
(6)  This verb changes to an adjective by adding a suffix.
(7)  This verb changes to a noun by adding a suffix.
(8)  This verb (which is also a noun) changes to an adjective by adding a suffix.
(9)  This verb changes to an adjective by adding a suffix.
(10)This noun changes to a negative adverb by adding a negative prefix and two suffixes. 

I hope that you did well and found that useful.  We will be doing more blogs about exam tips.  If you have any requests, please feel free to let us know.

By Heather

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