In this post, you will find some exam practice exercises which help your students improve their score in the word formation (Reading and Use of English part 3) part of the Cambridge Advanced exam.
This part of the exam often turns out to be quite a challenge for advanced students and it is no longer because they have major difficulties recognising correct parts of speech that go in the gaps. What poses the biggest problem here is choosing the best form for the part of speech they have correctly identified.
I usually let my students have some quiet time to complete such a worksheet and then, while checking, I ask them to justify their choices. This is when I try to make sure their correct answer was not just a lucky guess. They get a chance to once again go through the strategy of reading the text carefully, paying attention to details which might sometimes escape them.
Here are some questions they often ask themselves to explain their answer / find the correct answer:
- Is there an article in front the gap? If so, what article is it and what does it mean for the sentence?
- What part of speech is before/ after the gap (helps to decide whether the word in the gap should be an adverb or an adjective)?
- What is the subject of the sentence (helps to decide whether the verb should be singular or plural)?
- What point in time does the sentence / whole text describe (helps to decide on the tense of the verb)?
- What would complete the meaning of the sentence best, a noun denoting a person or an object?
- what would complete the meaning of the sentence best; a positive or a negative adjective/adverb?
Take a look at the infographic to make sure you remind your students of some crucial decisions they need to make before choosing a word form.
I wrote more about word formation practice here and here.
Materials
I love your website, thank you for sharing your brilliant ideas with us!
Thanks Reka! Thank you for stopping by 🙂