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READING COMPREHENSION COMPREHENSION
I. RECOGNIZING PARTS OF SPEECH 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 - er, -or, -ist
EXAMPLES Teacher,
SUFFIXES -ar
EXAMPLES Similar
-sion, -tion
Tourist Discussion,
-ic, -ic, -al, -al, -ica -icall
Comi Comic, c, lega legal, l, phys physic ical al
-ment, -ness
Action Enrollment,
-ful, -less
Healthful,
-ure, -ture
Happiness Pressure,
-ive
Hopeless Expensive,
-s, -es
Temperature States, quizzes
-ical -er (than)
Professor,
(plural forms) Exercise 1.
Physical Higher (Comparative forms)
Are the following following words words nouns or adjective adjectives? s? On each line, write write n (noun) (noun) or adj (adjective). The first items are done as examples.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
n n adj
Speaker Education Harmful Management Practical Popular Technical Instructors Assignments
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Individual Competitive Nutritionist Counselor Section Creative Powerful Forgetfulness Introduction
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 26 27
Equipment Wilderness Spectacular Expensive Temperature Travelers Beautiful National Recreation
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Complete the following sentences with the noun or adjective from Exercise 1 that is
Exercise 2.
related to each underlined word. The first one is done as an example.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Students study management to become managers. A native of English speaks English as a native l To become a better reader, you have to practice reading; reading is a ___________ skill. Do your instructors assign a lot of homework? So they give many reading ____________ ? Educators try to improve the quality of ____________ in schools. Can smoking harm people? Is it a _____________ or a ___________ habit? Vegetarians are nor usually __________ people. They don’t like to compete. ___________ are experts in nutrition (the study of food and diet). A _______________ person likes to create. How can the weather have power over people? Weather can have a ____________ effect on people’s feelings. People are often ___________ against the forces of nature
11. 12. 13.
(such as earthquakes, storms, floods). I often forget things, and I worry about my _________________ . Chapter 3 introduces you to parts of speech. It is a short ________________ . _________________ are different from tourists; they travel for experience and
14. 15.
knowledge more than to see things. My living expenses are high, so I can’t buy _______________ things. I love _______________ scenery: the beauty of nature relaxes me.
Exercise 3.
Circle the correct word (noun or adjective) in parentheses.
The first one is done as an example.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Words appear in a dictionary in (alphabet / alphabetical) order. If you study (grammar / grammatical), you learn about parts of speech. Travel is a time for (relaxation / relax) and (recreation / recreate). In Japan, people use landmarks such as buildings in their (directions / directs). The scenery in some areas is (spectacle / spectacular). In Yucatan, Mexico, the (temperature / temperate) is usually high. Do you know the (nation, national) parks of the western United States? In the United States, do you have to fill out a (registration / register) form at the post
9. 10.
office if you move to a new community? Is it (legality / legal) in your community to smoke in restaurants? The main idea of a paragraph is more (generally / general) and less (specificity / specific) than details
II. RECOGNIZING PARTS OF SPEECH 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.
NOUNS
ADJECTIVES
SUFFIXES -ance
EXAMPLES Distance
SUFFIXES -ant
EXAMPLES Distant
-ence
Difference
-ent
Different
ADVERBS
SUFFIXES -ly
EXAMPLES Clearly
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-ty
Ability
-able
Available
-ity
availability
-ible
responsible
Exercise 1.
-ally
Scientifically
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.
1 2 3 4 5 6
n
Exercise 2.
Intelligence importance Creativity Pleasant Magnificent magnificence
Available politely Personality Directly Quickly Convenience
13 14 15 16 17 18
Community responsible Responsibility Identically Equivalent Truly
Fill in the chart with the missing parts of speech.
NOUNS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7 8 9 10 11 12
ADJECTIVES
ADVERBS
Intelligence Intelligent ________________ Responsibility _______________ ________________ _______________ Active ________________ _______________ Traditional ________________ _______________ _______________ Importantly Happiness _______________ ________________ _______________ Pleasant ________________ Perfection _______________ ________________ Typicalness _______________ ________________ _______________ _______________ Recreationally
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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.
1.
People from differ_____ cultural backgrounds may think different____ about family life. For instance, there may be a big differ____ in their ideas about the import_____ of marriage and children_____ .
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.
III. LEARNING WORD FAMILIES
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 wordentry ; in other dictionaries, related words appear in separate entries. Here are examples of word families.
NOUNS VERBS Murder (thing) Murderer (person) Mystery Mystification mysteriousness
Murder Mystify
Murderous Mysterious
Murderously Mysteriously
ADJECTIVES
A
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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.
murder mystery
murderer mystify
murderous mysteriously
In my favorite story, someone murdered a hotel manager. No one seemed to have a motive, so this murderous act mystified everyone except the detective. _____________, she figured out the answer to the ______________ quickly. The _______________ was the chef. nerve perfection
nervous perfectionist
nervously perfect
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 fee _______________ . One day the hotel manager had the ___________________ to talk to the cook about the problem. _______________, he went into the kitchen. surprise critic
surprised criticism
surprisingly criticize
The manager’s ______________ was a complete _____________ to the chef. After all, no one ever __________d the cook because all the meals from the kitchen were perfect. Also, the manager was not a well–known food _____________. But ______________, the chef didn’t get angry at the manager. Then the manager was ________________ and worried.
Possibility fortune
possible fortunate
possibly fortunately
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 silencer
strange silence
strangely 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! ”
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IV. LEARNING TO USE WORDS WITH PREFIXES
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.
dis-
il-
im-
in-
non-
un-
Exercise 1. Which of these words contains a prefix with a negative meaning? Underline these prefixes. Put an X on the lines next to the words without negative prefix. The first two are done as examples.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Exercise 2.
X
incomplete include important uncommon illegal inherited distance disagree
9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
nonstop impolite imply unfortunately impossible inhabitants illness uncomfortable
From your own knowledge, write the missing negative (dis-, il-, im-, in-, non-, un-)in each blank. Then check your answers in the dictionary.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
similar appear balance perfectly active ability native
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
sense surprising natural popular mature personal literate
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
correct complete honest polite existent successful ease
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SUMMARY ON AFFIXES (PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES)
a. Prefixes
Prefixes come before a root word and have an adverbial effect. That is, they modify the meaning of the root word.
Time
Place
Mediated
Negation
sent
Pre
done
Ab
responsible
Un
Ir
View
duct
well
replaceable
natal
Here
agreed
perfect
Post
Ad Mortem
Dis
Im
jacent In
pleased
vade
In
vert
pede
complete correct
b. Suffixes They have two functions: 1) They show grammatical inflexion.
This mechanism decays ______________________ 3 rd person singular. Chomsky’s ideas ___________________________ genitive They performed well ________________________ simple past. 2) They denote parts of speech VERB
NOUN
ADJECTIVE ADVERB
-pose
propose
-ion
action
-ial
special
-ly
badly
-duce
produce
-is
basis
-al
general
-ally
diametrically
-ate
create
-ism
mechanism
-able
capable
-ward
backward
-ize
recognize
-ment
agreement
-ive
secretive
-wise
likewise
