VOCABULARY

Parts Of Speech

Parts of Speech

Knowing parts of speech is important especially when dealing with cloze texts.

Why?

It helps to identify what words are needed for the blank as it may help you eliminate those words that are grammatically wrong.

Look at the cloze pages on this site for more information about how to do the cloze section of the test.

When learning vocabulary, I place a lot of emphasis on derivatives. Knowing derivatives will help you learn the various parts of speech.

Below is a list of common suffixes that help indicate what parts of speech each word is.

Sometimes a word can be identified as a noun, adjective, adverb, or verb by its suffix (ending).

The following suffixes usually indicate nouns:

ance, encepermanence
hoodchildhood
ar, orscholar, doctor
ismsocialism
ion, sion, tionpopulation
acyaccuracy
ageimage
istartist
mentgovernment
nessness
ybeauty
tyreality, capacity


2 The following suffixes usually indicate adjectives:

alnatural
fulbeautiful
lyfriendly
icchronic
ishchildish
likechildlike
ousnumerous
yhappy
ateaccurate
able, iblecapable, terrible


The following suffix usually indicates adverbs:

ly

happily, readily, beautifully



The following suffixes usually indicate verbs:

ifybeautify
atepopulate
izerealize
enwiden, lengthen


Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and the same goes when dealing with parts of speech.

By knowing the various endings of words and learning how words are changed, you will be in much better shape when facing unknown words.

By identifying parts of speech, you’ll be able to avoid making costly cloze mistakes.