Dealing with Unfamiliar Vocabulary (British Council Academic IELTS: Reading): Study Material
Dealing with unfamiliar vocabulary
It is not necessary to know all the vocabulary in the reading texts
If a reading passage uses technical vocabulary, then a simple dictionary definition is provided
Some unfamiliar words may be important so use the strategies below to work out the meaning
Strategies for understanding vocabulary in context
First, decide if the word is needed to answer a question. If not, ignore it and move on
If you decide that the word is important, can you guess its meaning from its location in the text?
Look at the other words in the sentence and in the sentence before and after for clues
Also consider the main idea of the paragraph
The morphology, or form, of the word can also help you find its meaning, e.g.
an -ed ending suggests the past tense of a verb
a -ly ending is probably an adverb
Does the word have a prefix or suffix? e.g.
the prefix -anti suggests an oppositional meaning, such as anti-capitalist
the suffix -isation suggests a process, such as industrialisation.
Use the table below for more strategies to find meanings
Key strategies for working out meaning from context
Synonym (similar meaning is given) | The femur is vital for walking, standing and bearing weight. This thigh bone has to be very strong. |
Antonym (the opposite meaning is given) | While the lower leg has two bones, the upper leg has only the femur. |
Definition (meaning is directly given) | The femur is the bone connecting the hip and knee in the human body. |
Appositive phrase (more information or meaning is given set off by commas) | The femur, which connects the hip and knee, is the longest bone in the human body. |
Example (meaning can be worked out from category or other items) | Skiing accidents more commonly result in damage to the more fragile parts of the body, such as the hands or wrists rather than the skull or femur. |
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