Can you tell the difference between historic and historical?
When do you use accept and when do you use except?
Further and Farther? Sensual and Sensuous?
These types of questions can be labelled as Commonly Confused Words.
Format: Typically a sentence is given which has a blank. Two
alternatives are provided for filling up the blank. The aspirant has
to use his/her knowledge of English vocabulary to select the right
word to fit into the blank. Of course this being the CAT - it does not
stop at that - one has to solve 5 sentences like these to be able to
arrive at one correct answer! Which means that you have to solve all
the sentences very carefully. Even if you get one of the sentences
wrong the correct answers in all the other sentences would not fetch
any marks.
Sample question from CAT 2007
Sentences
1.Regrettably / Regretfully I have to decline your invitation.
2.I am drawn to the poetic, sensual / sensuous quality of her paintings.
3.He was besides / beside himself with rage when I told him what I had done.
4.After brushing against a stationary / stationery truck my car turned turtle.
5.As the water began to rise over / above the danger mark, the signs
of an imminent flood were
clear.
Answer Choices
(1) BAABA (2) BBBAB (3) AAABA (4) BBAAB (5) BABAB
As you can see in the above question you have to pick the right word
for the blanks in Sentences 1-5 and the correct combination among the
Answer Choices 1-5 has to be selected.
Practice: The question before us is to how to practice these types of
questions as they are not available as a separate topic in any grammar
book as such. In such a difficult situation we turn to the Internet
for help.
a) Wikipedia: Our first stop is the Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a page
with a list of English words which are commonly misused. The list of
words are alphabetically arranged. It discusses the meaning of the
words and uses the words in a sentence in the right way as well as non
standard constructions.
Example from Wikipedia,
accept and except. While they sound similar (or even identical),
except is a preposition that means "apart from", while accept is a
verb that means "agree with", "take in", or "receive". Except is also
occasionally used as a verb, meaning to take out or to leave out.
Standard: We accept all major credit cards, except Diners Club.
Standard: Men are fools... present company excepted! (Which means,
"present company excluded")
Non-standard: I had trouble making friends with them; I never felt excepted.
Non-standard: We all went swimming, accept for Jack.
b) Google: If you type the phrase "Commonly Confused Words" into
Google, you should get access to the following resources for CCW.
(i) Oxford Dictionary has a page on this topic
-http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/easilyconfused - which is in the
following format and has roughly 65-70 word pairs.
Word 1MeaningWord 2Meaning
altar
a sacred table in a church
alter
to change
amoral
not concerned with right or wrong
immoral
not following accepted moral standards
appraise
to assess
apprise
to inform someone
assent
agreement, approval
ascent
the action of rising or climbing up
aural
relating to the ears or hearing
oral
relating to the mouth; spoken
(ii) Edufind.com
-http://www.edufind.com/english/writing/easily_confused_words.cfm -
This too has a listing of pairs of easily confused of words. The
advantage is that the meaning is not given on the page itself but
rather is in the following format
Word 1Word 2
defusediffuse
delusionillusion
delusionallusion
descentdissent
desertdessert
discreetdiscrete
Once you have taken a look at the words defuse and diffuse and decided
what they mean - you can press the review button and it gives you the
difference between the the two words in this form,
defuse
Remove the fuse from an explosive device. Can be used to mean to 'calm
down' an incident.
Example:
He defused a dangerous situation by talking calmly and logically to
the angry mob.
diffuse
Spread over a wide area
Example:
The wreckage was found over a diffuse area covering nearly thirty
square kilometers.
(iii) ABOUT.COM - A number of quizzes are presented on about.com for
identifying CCW. The advantage here is that the words are not
stand-alone but appear in sentences as they would appear in the CAT. A
look at the linkhttp://esl.about.com/library/quiz/bl_confusing1.htm
shows us the following,
Q: The _____ applauded enthusiastically after the performance was finished.
(a) audience
(b) spectators
You can keep marking your answers and get your score at the end of the
the quiz. Other Links on about.com which may be useful for CCW are,
a) http://esl.about.com/library/quiz/bl_homophone1.htm
b) http://esl.about.com/library/quiz/bl_homophone2.htm
c) http://esl.about.com/library/quiz/bl_confusing2.htm
c) As usual there is no place like Pagalguy for your prep work and a
casual look at a couple of threads reveals a rich source of CCW.
Examples from PG Threads,
moot:Subject to debate; arguable
E.g: a moot question.
moor: To make fast (a vessel, for example) by means of cables, anchors, or lines
E.g: moor a ship to a dock.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
amended:To remove the faults or errors in; correct.
E.g.: President amended the earlier proposal so as to make it more
comprehensive.
emended:To improve by critical editing:
E.g.: emend a faulty text.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ingenious**:Marked by inventive skill and imagination.
E.g: an ingenious scheme
igneous: Of, relating to, or characteristic of fire.
E.g.:an igneous desert atmosphere.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
prudent: Wise in handling practical matters; exercising good judgment
or common sense.
E.g.: a prudent manager
prudish: Marked by or exhibiting the characteristics of a prude(One
who is excessive);
E.g. prudish lady
PG Threads for reference purpose,
1. http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/commonly-confused-words-25044418
2. http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/confusing-english-words-25051429
d) Books - If you are attending coaching classes you will find that
they also provide you with a list of CCW in their Grammar Books. Apart
from this, a good book to follow for these types of questions is
Better English by Normal Lewis.
e) Mock CATS: Since these questions have been coming in the CAT you
will find that you will be frequently asked these types of questions
in the Mocks . As discussed in my previous article on Mock CAT
analysis - maintain a database of these CCW and you will find the
databank extremely helpful for revision purpose when the CAT is just
round the corner!
I am sure that if you tapped the above sources well you will be
exposed to a variety of CCW and will confidently sale through the CCW.
Oh! That should have been sail!
No comments:
Post a Comment