Vocabulary, Sounds, Prefixes, Suffixes and Idioms

Question 8 is worth five marks and takes five minutes, which makes it the best-paid question on the paper. It tests vocabulary: the meaning of a word, the word that fits a gap, the opposite of a word, the meaning of an idiom, or a word built from a given root. None of it can be bluffed, but almost all of it can be worked out — English words are made of parts, and the parts have fixed meanings. This chapter is about those parts, and about the sounds and idioms that go with them.

35.1 What Question 8 asks

Item type	Example
Meaning in context	What does "insistent" mean in the passage?
Word formation	Fill the gap with the correct form of able: his ____ to pay.
Opposites	Give the antonym of "scarce".
Idiom or phrasal verb	What does "call off" mean?
Prefix or suffix	Add a prefix to "regular" to give the opposite.

Five items, one mark each, no part marks. A near-miss — ability written as able, irregular as unregular — scores nothing, so word class and spelling matter as much as meaning.

35.2 Sounds and spelling

English spelling records how words were said several centuries ago, which is why letters sit in words without being pronounced. The commonest silent letters:

Silent	Words
k before n	know, knee, knife, knock, knowledge
w before r, and in some others	write, wrong, wrist, answer, sword, two
b after m, and before t	comb, climb, lamb, thumb; doubt, debt, subtle
l before f, k, m	half, calf, walk, talk, calm, palm, should, would
t between s and l, or in -ten	castle, whistle, listen, fasten
h at the start of a few words	hour, honest, honour, heir
g before n	sign, design, foreign, gnaw, campaign
p before s, n, or in a few others	psychology, pneumonia, receipt, cupboard
n after m at the end	autumn, column, hymn, condemn

A silent letter often reappears when a suffix is added — the g of sign is heard in signature, the n of column in columnist — which is a useful clue that two words belong to the same family.

35.3 Word stress

Every English word of more than one syllable has one syllable said louder, longer and higher than the rest. Putting the stress in the wrong place can make a word unrecognisable even when every sound in it is correct.

Two patterns are worth memorising because they are almost exceptionless.

Pattern 1 — the noun/verb shift. In many two-syllable words spelt the same, the noun is stressed on the first syllable and the verb on the second.

So keep a record but please record it; a sharp increase but prices will increase. The same holds for conduct, conflict, contrast, export, import, object, permit, present, rebel, suspect and progress.

Pattern 2 — the suffix that pulls the stress. Certain endings force the stress onto the syllable immediately before them: -ion, -ity, -ic, -ical, -ial, -graphy, -logy.

Base	Derived word	Stress
inform	information	before -ion
possible	possibility	before -ity
economy	economic	before -ic
politics	political	before -ical
photograph	photography	before -graphy

A few endings take the stress themselves: -ee, -eer, -ese, -ique, -esque — hence employee, engineer, Japanese, unique, picturesque. And the ordinary endings -ly, -ness, -ful, -less, -ment, -er, -ing, -ed never move the stress at all: care, careful, carefully, carelessness all keep it on care.

35.4 Prefixes

A prefix goes in front of a root and changes its meaning. It almost never changes the word class: happy and unhappy are both adjectives.

Prefix	Meaning	Examples
un-	not, the reverse of	unhappy, unable, undo, unlock
in-, im-, il-, ir-	not	incorrect, impossible, illegal, irregular
dis-	not, the opposite of	dishonest, disagree, disappear
non-	not (neutral)	non-violent, non-stop, non-fiction
mis-	wrongly, badly	misunderstand, misspell, misuse
re-	again, back	rewrite, rebuild, return
pre- / post-	before / after	preview, prepaid / postgraduate, postpone
over- / under-	too much / too little	overwork, overcrowded / underpaid, underfed
sub- / super-	under / above, beyond	submarine, subway / supervise, superhuman
inter-	between	international, interval, interview
trans-	across	transport, transfer, translate
anti- / pro-	against / in favour of	antiseptic, anti-clockwise / pro-democracy
auto-	self	autobiography, automatic
mono-, uni- / bi- / tri- / multi- / semi-	one / two / three / many / half	monologue, uniform, bilingual, tricycle, multipurpose, semicircle
micro- / macro- / tele-	small / large / far	microscope, macroeconomics, telephone

The four negative prefixes in-, im-, il-, ir- are one prefix with four spellings, and the spelling is decided by the first letter of the root:

• im- before b, m, p — imbalance, immoral, impossible, impatient
• il- before l — illegal, illiterate, illogical
• ir- before r — irregular, irrelevant, irresponsible
• in- before everything else — incorrect, invisible, inactive

No rule tells you whether a word takes un-, in- or dis-; that is learnt word by word. Unhappy, not inhappy; incorrect, not uncorrect; dishonest, not unhonest.

35.5 Suffixes, and the spelling rules for adding them

A suffix goes at the end of a root and usually changes the word class.

Makes a	Suffixes	Examples
Noun (thing, quality)	-ment, -ness, -tion/-sion, -ity, -ance/-ence, -ship, -hood, -dom, -age, -ism	agreement, kindness, decision, ability, importance, friendship, childhood, freedom, marriage, tourism
Noun (person)	-er, -or, -ist, -ian, -ee	teacher, actor, artist, musician, employee
Adjective	-ful, -less, -able/-ible, -ous, -ive, -al, -ic, -y, -ish, -en	careful, careless, comfortable, visible, dangerous, active, national, historic, rainy, childish, wooden
Verb	-ise/-ize, -en, -ify, -ate	modernise, widen, simplify, activate
Adverb	-ly, -wards, -wise	quickly, backwards, clockwise

Beware of -ly. On an adjective it makes an adverb (quick → quickly), but on a noun it makes an adjective: friend → friendly, love → lovely, cost → costly. She smiled friendly is wrong; She gave a friendly smile is right.

Four spelling rules cover almost every case.

1. Drop silent e before a vowel suffix, keep it before a consonant suffix: hoping but hopeful, caring but careful. Keep it after c or g before a or o, to hold the soft sound: noticeable, courageous. Exceptions to learn: truly, argument, ninth.
2. y becomes *i after a consonant: happiness, carried, beautiful. But keep y before -ing (carrying) and after a vowel (played, enjoyment). Exceptions: daily, paid, said*.
3. Double the final consonant before a vowel suffix when a one-syllable word ends consonant–vowel–consonant (stopping, bigger, runner), and in a longer word only when the stress falls on the last syllable: begin → beginning, prefer → preferred, but offer → offered, visit → visited. British English doubles a final -l whatever the stress: travelled, cancelled.
4. -ful has one *l: beautiful, careful, useful — though the adverb has two, beautifully*.

35.6 Building words: prefix + root + suffix

Ask two questions of any new word: what does the prefix do to the meaning? and what class does the suffix make it?

35.7 Synonyms, antonyms and words that are nearly the same

A synonym has a similar meaning (begin / start / commence); an antonym has the opposite (scarce / plentiful). Two warnings.

Synonyms are rarely exact. Slim, thin and skinny all describe a narrow body, but slim is a compliment, thin is neutral and skinny is unkind. Commence is not better than begin, only more formal — and in a story it is the wrong choice.

Some antonyms are made by prefix, others are separate words. Regular → irregular (prefix), but hot → cold (separate word). If the question says add a prefix, it wants the first kind.

Word	Antonym by prefix	Word	Antonym is a different word
legal	illegal	ancient	modern
possible	impossible	scarce	plentiful
relevant	irrelevant	shallow	deep
obey	disobey	permanent	temporary
employment	unemployment	artificial	natural

Finally, six pairs whose members are not interchangeable, however similar they look:

• affect (verb: to influence) · effect (noun: the result). The rain affected the crop; the effect was severe.
• lie (to rest; lay, lain; no object) · lay (to put down; laid, laid; takes an object). Lie down. Lay the book here.
• sensible (having good judgement) · sensitive (easily hurt or affected).
• among (more than two) · between (two).

35.8 Idioms and phrasal verbs

An idiom is a fixed group of words whose meaning cannot be worked out from the words themselves. You cannot guess it and you cannot alter it: it is beat about the bush, never beat around the shrub.

Idiom	Meaning
a piece of cake	very easy
once in a blue moon	very rarely
beat about the bush	avoid coming to the point
let the cat out of the bag	reveal a secret by accident
burn the midnight oil	work or study late into the night
hit the nail on the head	say exactly the right thing
turn a blind eye	ignore something on purpose
under the weather	slightly unwell
cost an arm and a leg	be extremely expensive
break the ice	make a first meeting less awkward
pull someone's leg	tease someone playfully

A phrasal verb is a verb plus a small word (up, off, after, into) whose meaning is often nothing like the verb alone.

Phrasal verb	Meaning	Example
put off	postpone	The meeting was put off till Sunday.
call off	cancel	They called off the match.
give up	stop doing; surrender	He gave up smoking.
look after	take care of	She looks after her grandmother.
look up	find in a book or list	Look the word up.
get over	recover from	He got over the fever quickly.
carry out	perform	They carried out the experiment.
run out of	have no more of	We ran out of petrol.
take after	resemble (a relative)	He takes after his mother.
put up with	tolerate	I cannot put up with the noise.

35.9 Working out a word you do not know

Unknown words turn up in Questions 1 and 8, and the paper expects reasoning rather than guessing. Four checks, in this order:

1. The parts. Irreplaceable = ir- (not) + replace + -able (can be) = "cannot be replaced".
2. The class. A word after the is a noun; a word after very is an adjective or adverb. That alone halves the possibilities.
3. The signal. That is, in other words, such as, or, a dash or a comma pair — writers often define a hard word immediately after using it.
4. The direction. Even without the exact sense, the sentence tells you whether the word is positive or negative. Half a mark's worth of sense beats a blank.

Chapter summary

• Question 8 is five one-mark items on vocabulary. Word class and spelling must both be right; there are no part marks.
• Silent letters often reappear when a suffix is added (sign → signature), which is a clue to word families.
• Stress matters: two-syllable noun/verb pairs stress the first syllable as a noun and the second as a verb; the endings -ion, -ity, -ic, -ical, -graphy pull the stress onto the syllable before them.
• A prefix changes meaning; a suffix changes word class. The negative prefix is im- before b, m, p; il- before l; ir- before r; in- elsewhere.
• Four spelling rules cover adding suffixes: drop silent e before a vowel suffix, y → i after a consonant, double the final consonant when the stress is at the end, and -ful has one l.
• Synonyms are rarely exact — they differ in formality and in feeling. Some antonyms are made with a prefix, others are separate words.
• Idioms and phrasal verbs are fixed. A pronoun object must split a separable phrasal verb (call it off) but never an inseparable one (look after her).
• An unknown word can be reasoned out from its parts, class, signal words and direction.

Practice questions

Add a prefix to give the opposite (1 mark each)

1. ____ regular [1]
2. ____ legal [1]
3. ____ honest [1]
4. ____ patient [1]
5. ____ able [1]
6. ____ literate [1]
7. ____ agree [1]
8. ____ mature [1]

Answers

1. irregular — ir- before r.

2. illegal — il- before l.

3. dishonest — learnt, not rule-based; ~~unhonest~~ is wrong.

4. impatient — im- before p.

5. unable — learnt; ~~inable~~ is wrong. (Disable exists but means something different: to make unable.)

6. illiterate — il- before l.

7. disagree.

8. immature — im- before m.

Give the correct form of the word in brackets (1 mark each)

9. His ____ to pay the fee delayed his admission. (able) [1]
10. The committee reached a quick ____ . (decide) [1]
11. She spoke with great ____ . (confident) [1]
12. The road is being ____ this year. (wide) [1]
13. He answered ____ and sat down. (nerve) [1]
14. The plan was ____ from the start. (practice) [1]
15. We need a ____ of the whole system. (modern) [1]
16. Their ____ lasted forty years. (friend) [1]

Answers

9. inability — a noun after his; the negative prefix for ability is in-.

10. decision — decide + -ion, with the spelling change -de → -sion.

11. confidence — a noun after great.

12. widened — a passive verb: wide + -en, then -ed.

13. nervously — an adverb describing answered: nerve → nervous → nervously.

14. impracticable (or impractical) — an adjective after was, with a negative sense given by from the start.

15. modernisation — a noun after a: modern → modernise → modernisation.

16. friendship — a noun; friendly is an adjective and will not fit after their.

Meanings and usage (1 mark each)

17. What does beat about the bush mean? [1]
18. What does burn the midnight oil mean? [1]
19. Replace the underlined words with a phrasal verb: They cancelled the programme. [1]
20. Replace the underlined words: She resembles her father. [1]
21. Correct the error: Please look the word after in the dictionary. [1]
22. Correct the error: They called off it because of the rain. [1]
23. Choose the right word: The principal / principle of the campus addressed us. [1]
24. Choose the right word: The bus remained stationary / stationery for an hour. [1]
25. Where is the stress in record in Please record the lesson? [1]
26. Where is the stress in photography? [1]

Answers

17. To avoid coming to the main point; to talk round a subject.

18. To work or study late into the night.

19. They ~~cancelled~~ → called off the programme (or called the programme off).

20. She ~~resembles~~ → takes after her father.

21. Please ~~look the word after~~ → look up the word (or look the word up) in the dictionary. Look after means "take care of"; the verb needed here is look up, which is separable.

22. They ~~called off it~~ → called it off because of the rain. A pronoun object must come between the verb and the particle.

23. Principal — the head of the campus. Principle is a rule or belief.

24. Stationary — not moving. Stationery is paper and pens.

25. On the second syllable — record — because it is a verb here.

26. On the second syllable — photography — because -graphy pulls the stress onto the syllable before it.