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Cambridge Exam Blog 3

 Today it’s time to look at part 3!

 

 

 

WORD FORMATION

 

What’s the task like?

You have a short text with words in bold at the end of some lines. You need to change the form of the word so it fits correctly in the gap.

E.g

The concert was a great …………. and everyone enjoyed themselves.       SUCCEED    

Here we have the verb SUCCEED. We need a noun so we change  SUCCEED to SUCCESS.

 

How many points is it worth?

Every correct answer is worth 1 point of the total 36 for the Use of English paper. It’s 22% of the paper or 4% of the whole exam.

 

How long do I have to do it?

Just like part 1 we’d recommend spending about 7 minutes on this exercise.

 

What kind of words come up?

Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

 

How can I identify what kind of word I need?

 Nouns normally come after articles or prepositions.

Verbs aren’t very common but you might find them after a pronoun or ‘to’.

Adjectives in English often come before a noun or after the verb ‘be’.

Adverbs can be found at the beginning of a sentence (followed by a comma), after a verb or before an adjective.

 

What should I bear in mind?

 Nouns

  • Is it a person or a thing?
  • Is it singular or plural?
  • Is it positive or negative?

 

Nouns that often come up  are : laughter, loss, solution, success, choice, knowledge, speech, proof, belief, growth, height, strength, length, depth, truth, youth, scientist, discovery, behaviour,safety, length, width, ease, activity, variety, description,equipment, illness, relief, response, addition.

 Verbs

  • Which form or tense is the verb in?
  • Is it positive or negative?

 Tricky English verbs that often appear include : ensure, enable, strengthen, widen, thicken, deepen, deaf, tighten, misspell, misunderstand, misbehave, underestimate, minimize.

 

Adjectives

  • Is it positive or negative?
  • Common prefixes : un-, in-, im-, dis-, il-, ir-,
  • Common suffixes :  -ous, -ful, -y, -al, -ent,  -ant, -ive, -ible, -able, -less

 Common adjectives you in this part are:  beneficial, (dis)obedient, (dis)honest, apparent, pleasure, (un)reliable, (un)successful, (im)possible, (un)enthusiastic, extraordinary, energetic, cheerful.

 Adverbs

 First indentify the the adjective you need and add –ly (QUICK – QUICKLY)

  • If the adjective finished in Y change it to a I (HAPPY – HAPPILY)
  • If the adjective ends in IC add –ALLY (DRAMATIC – DRAMATICALLY)
  • If the adjective ends in LE take off the E and add Y (SIMPLE – SIMPLY)

 

Hope this has helped you. Good luck!