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READING COMPREHENSION
When you try to figure out the meaning of a new vocabulary item from the
context and to use the item correctly in speaking and writing, it helps to know
what part of speech the word is. Sometimes, you can tell the part of speech
from the suffix (the ending) on a word. Here are some common noun and
adjective suffixes.
NOUNS ADJECTIVES
SUFFIXES EXAMPLES SUFFIXES EXAMPLES
- er, -or, -ist Teacher, -ar Similar
Professor,
Tourist
-sion, -tion Discussion, -ic, -al, -ical Comic, legal, physical
Action
-ment, -ness Enrollment, -ful, -less Healthful,
Happiness Hopeless
-ure, -ture Pressure, -ive Expensive,
Temperature -ical Physical
-s, -es States, quizzes -er (than) Higher
(plural forms) (Comparative forms)
Exercise 1. Are the following words nouns or adjectives? On each line, write n
(noun) or adj (adjective). The first items are done as examples.
Exercise 2. Complete the following sentences with the noun or adjective from
Exercise 1 that is related to each underlined word. The first one is done
as an example.
As you know, to figure out the meaning of a new word, it is useful to know
what part of speech the word is. The following chart has more common
suffixes that will help you recognize words by their parts of speech.
Exercise 1. Are the following words nouns, adjectives or adverbs? On each line, write
n (noun), adj (adjective) or adv (adverb). The first item is done as an
example.
Exercise 3. Read the following sentences. Most of the sentences have at least one
incorrect word. Write the part that is missing. IF you think a word is
complete and doesn’t need anything, put an X in the blank.
2. Family members today may not share many family activit____ because they
probably lead very act____ lives outside the home. For example, a woman
may active_____ run her own business. In this case, she probably expects her
family to take more responsabil____ for housework and shopping.
3. Nobody in our family likes to clean up the kitchen after dinner. I guess we’re a
typical_____ American family. My brother and I had a terrible argu____ last
night about the dish____. Final____, after about ten minutes of screaming, we
decided to do them together. Unfortunate____, my brother and I are both
care____ people. We broke three glass____ and a very expens_____ plate.
When you understand the meanings and uses of suffixes (word endings), you can
better learn vocabulary systematically. In other words, you can study word
families – groups of related words with the same stem, or main part, but different
suffixes. In some dictionaries, these related words appear in the same word
entry; in other dictionaries, related words appear in separate entries. Here are
examples of word families.
Exercise 1. Complete the following story with words from the displayed words. For
some blanks, more than one answer may be correct. The first few are
done for you.
The chef was a ___________ - he insisted on _________ in the kitchen. Every meal
had to be _____________. Because of the cook’s perfectionism, the kitchen workers
were always feeling _______________ . One day the hotel manager had the
___________________ to talk to the cook about the problem. _______________, he
went into the kitchen.
surprise surprised surprisingly
critic criticism criticize
The next evening, the manager got a strange fortune cookie with his Chinese dinner.
His _______________ said, “You are ____________ to get this warning about your
___________ death, _____________, you will die tonight. But _________, now you
know about the ______________.
stranger strange strangely
silencer silence silent
When a ______________ came into the dining room, no one said anything; everyone
was ______________ _____________. Suddenly, a __________________ thing
happened. A shout broke the _______________. A kitchen helper yelled, “Help! The
chef is shot!”
A prefix is a word element placed at the beginning of a root. Prefixes are like
suffixes in that they change the meaning of the root and form a new word;
however, prefixes do not change the word’s part of speech.
Knowing the meaning of a prefix will give a clue to the meaning of the word. The
following prefixes mean “no” or “not” and add negative meanings to words; that is,
these prefixes create antonyms, or words with opposite meanings.
1. incomplete 9. nonstop
2. X include 10. impolite
3. important 11. imply
4. uncommon 12. unfortunately
5. illegal 13. impossible
6. inherited 14. inhabitants
7. distance 15. illness
8. disagree 16. uncomfortable
Exercise 2. From your own knowledge, write the missing negative (dis-, il-, im-, in-,
non-, un-)in each blank. Then check your answers in the dictionary.
Exercise 3. Look at the words in exercise 2. Complete the following sentences about
negative prefixes. Circle the correct answer.
V. READING EXERCISE
Read the following questions and the text, and then mark the correct answers
with a circle.
Language Learning
No one knows how human beings learn a language. In the 1950’s a famous
psychologist, E.F. Skinner, said that learning was simply the acquisition of new habits.
He taught animals to perform actions by rewarding them when they performed well and
punishing them when they performed badly. His ideas were widely used in language
teaching.
Noam Chomsky disagreed with Skinner, and in 1959 he proposed what became the
basis for a new theory of language learning. Chomsky said all humans beings have a
special mechanism in their brains which is the basis of speech. This mechanism
decays as we grow older, which may explain why children frequently have fewer
problems when learning a language than adults do.
Since 1959 psychologists and teachers have produced variations on Skinner’s and
Chomsky’s ideas but there is still no general agreement on how we learn language.
a. Prefixes
Prefixes come before a root word and have an adverbial effect. That is, they
modify the meaning of the root word.
In vade In complete
vert correct
Guessing Words
Reading text in a foreign language is not easy. The reader has to recognize the
structures which appear in the text, and a good number of the words too. Very often
we do not need to know the exact meaning of all the words, if we can understand the
ideas they contain. Nevertheless, a specific word can be essential for our
understanding of an idea. Therefore, if that word is not already apart of our
vocabulary, we have to guess its meaning.
There are various ways of guessing the meaning of words, but understanding
affixes (prefixes and Suffixes) is one of the most useful. They are particles or words
joined to a root or base word to create a new word. Prefixes go before the root word,
and suffixes follow it. For example, take a root word like APPEAR. We can add a
suffix, ANCE, to make another new word – DISAPPEARANCE.
Now, how does this help us guessing the meaning of words? Well, f we know
that the root word, APPEAR, means to become visible, when we see it with the
negative prefix DIS it must mean the opposite of the root suffix, ANCE, which makes
words into nouns (the names of things), we know that the new word must mean THE
NAME OF THE OPPOSITE OF TO BECOME VISIBLE. If we understand the function
of a number of common affixes, this will help us to guess the meaning of words.
5. Ly is a ...
adverb.
Exercise 2. Reference.
Exercise 3. Read the following sentences and complete them with the correct word
or phrases.
3.1.The reader has to _____________ the structures which appear in the text.
3.4. __________, if that word is not already part of our vocabulary, we have to guess
its meaning.
3.6. Now, how does this help us ____________ the meaning of words?
3.9. For example, read the _____________ sentence: He saw the fire and ran away
rassly.
3.10. The person is ____________ a way from the fire, so rassly must mean quickly.
3.11. In this way we can _____________ affixes to guess the meaning of words.
Exercise 4. Put the following words in the correct order to make five sentences.
5. can we in texts In this guess the use affixes way to meaning words
of.
Exercise 5. Read the following beginnings and endings, and make five sentences for
them.
Exercise 6. Read the following sentences and organize them to make a composition.
The first sentence has been chosen for you.