Writer: Nguyễn Thị Cương
2.4. Experimental results
2.3.1. Skills of doing exercises about symnonyms and antonyms.
To do these exercises correctly, students need to acquire some necessary skills. If the exercises are simple enough, which means the words given are understandable and the context is not difficult, students can do them smoothly. However, if the given words/ phrases/ sentences are at higher levels, they need to apply the following ways.
a. Guessing/ infering the meaning.
This is an important skill when doing a test. Most of the English tests include a great amount of vocabulary, so there may appear difficult and unfamiliar words. In this situation, students have to guess or infer their meanings basing on the context.
Examples:
Choose the best word/phrase that is CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined part in the following question. [5]
In this example, “ defaulted” is a difficult word and not many students know what it means. However, the phrases: “his loan” and “the bank took him to the court” can enable students to infer its meaning and choose its symnonym which is option A.
His greatest period of productivity occurred between 1876 and 1890 , during which time he enjoyed the patronage of Madame Von Meck , a woman he never met , who gave him a living stipend of about 1,000 a year.[4]
In this example, “ enjoyed the patronage of ” is an unfamiliar phrase and it is not easy to guess the meaning if standing alone. With the following clause “who gave him a living stipend of about 1,000 a year”, people can infer its meaning and choose C as the correct answer.
b. Ruling out.
With questions followed by disturbed options, “ruling out” is a necessary skill. From the meaning of the words and context, grammatical structures or signs, students must carefully read and analyse each option to make the correct choice.
Examples:
In this example, the idiom “held in very high esteem” can be understood basing on the context. Therefore, students can rule out two options B,C that relating to its meaning at first. Then, option A can not be the correct answer because its meaning does not belong to two terms: symnonym or antonyms. As a result, D will be the right choice.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to the underlined part of the following question. [6]
As soon as he approached the house, the policeman stopped him.
This example consists of some disturbed options, so students need to be carefully.
The four options start with “ Hardly” or” No sooner” which are two forms of inversion. Basing on their structures, “ Hardly had +S +p.p +when+ S + Ved” and “ No sooner had +S +p.p +than+ S + Ved” students can rule out options B,C and D.
Writing: Teachers should design or select exercises with some basic structures such as: because and because of, although and in spite of/ despite, in order to/ so as to, so that/ such that, conditional sentences type 1,2,3, tenses
Exercise : Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions. [5]
Exercise : Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions.
Exercise 4: Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions.[5]
The confirmation of the Head –Master
Thanh Hoa, May 10th , 2019
I assure this is my experience initiative, not copying the contents of other people.
The writer
Nguyen Thi Cuong