Word formation: four answers, one key
Álvaro is completing the word-formation task in a mock paper: a 150-word text about a low-cost, repairable smartphone, with eight gaps. Each gap gives a base word in capitals and he must write the correct form; one point per item, no half marks. His answers include: gap 2, 'The company's ___ (GROW) has been spectacular' → growing; gap 4, 'Prices are low enough to be ___ (AFFORD) for students' → affording; gap 6, 'The ___ (SIMPLE) of the design is its main strength' → simpleness; gap 7, 'The engineers were ___ (CARE) not to promise too much' → caring. He feels confident because all four are real English words and he checked them in a dictionary app during the break.
1. For each of the four answers, decide whether the key would accept it and give the expected form, justifying each from the grammatical slot.
Read the worked answer
Gap 2 - growth, not growing. The possessive 'the company's' plus 'has been' requires a noun subject: 'the company's growth'. Growing can be a gerund, but 'the company's growing has been spectacular' is unnatural and is not the family member being tested.
Gap 4 - affordable, not affording. 'to be ___ for students' is be + adjective + for + person; affording would be a participle needing its own object. Keep the double f of afford: a-f-f-o-r-d-a-b-l-e.
Gap 6 - simplicity, not simpleness. 'The ___ of the design' is article + noun + of; the -ity derivative is the standard one (able → ability, possible → possibility). Simpleness exists in dictionaries but is rare and would not be keyed.
Gap 7 - careful, not caring. Both are adjectives, but caring means kind, which makes 'caring not to promise too much' meaningless. The intended sense is cautious, so the answer is careful.
2. Álvaro argues that a dictionary proves *simpleness* is correct. Give him a decision rule for the exam and list the checks he should run on any word-formation answer.
Read the worked answer
A dictionary proves a word exists, not that it is the answer the item was built around. These items test one family of one base word in one slot, and the key lists a single form.
Decision rule: (1) identify the slot - noun, adjective, adverb, verb, singular or plural; (2) apply the commonest suffix for that base (-ity for many -le/-ble adjectives, -ness where no -ity form is normal, -ment/-ion for verbs, -ly for adverbs); (3) read the finished sentence aloud; if two forms fit, choose the more frequent family member, not the exotic one.
Final two-minute checks: spelling shifts (happy → happiness, able → ability, argue → argument), consonant doubling (affordable, successful), plural -s when the gap is a subject ('___ (CONSUME) are increasingly aware' → Consumers), capital letters for sentence-initial gaps, and negative prefixes only when the meaning demands them (careless vs careful).