Vocabulary and Word Meaning
What this domain tests
Vocabulary and Word Meaning checks whether you can connect a word to its meaning quickly and accurately. Questions may ask you to match a word to a picture, choose the best word for a sentence, select an opposite, or group words by topic. The exam favours everyday words: family, food, school, weather, travel, feelings, and common actions. You are tested on meaning in context, not just recognition.
Core rules
- Read the whole sentence before choosing. A word can be correct grammatically but wrong in meaning.
- Use part-of-speech clues. The gap after “a” or “the” usually needs a noun; after “very” it needs an adjective.
- For opposites, check the exact relationship: hot/cold is an opposite; hot/warm is a degree difference.
- For topic groups, reject the word that belongs to another category even if it is familiar.
- Define a word with a simple phrase you already know: “enormous” = very big.
Worked example
“The shop was so ______ that we could hardly move.” Options: crowded / empty / quiet / wide. “Hardly move” tells you there were too many people, so the answer is crowded. Empty and quiet describe the opposite situation. Wide describes space, not people. The grammar fits all four, so meaning decides.
Traps
- Similar sounds: “live” and “leave”; “ship” and “sheep”.
- False friends from your first language.
- Choosing a word because it appears in the topic, not because it fits the sentence.
- Ignoring a negative: “not crowded” means there were few people.
- Confusing a word’s feeling: “cheap” is about price, not quality.