Oooh, tricky tricky - sometimes on your GMAT exam (or any other like it), a question will
give you one word which is REALLY
similar to another word - just slightly different. But it's
wrong! Dead wrong! You simply can't substitute a right answer
with a wrong answer, just because it seems the same.
There are lots of lessons on Learnhub which can help you with
commonly confused words, such as:
Commonly mistaken 'A' words,
Commonly mistaken 'B' words, and
Mistaken words beginning with 'F'. Here a few common examples
which even I (yes, I know, who would have thought) get confused
with sometimes:
PRACTICE VS.
PRACTISE
Practice with a C is a noun, while practise with an S is a verb.
e.g.I practise the piano everyday (verb), but I forgot to do my piano practice yesterday (noun).
My doctor has practised medicine for ten years (verb). Your brother has a soccer practice on Monday (noun).
ADVICE VS. ADVISE
It's the exact same trick as above - "advice" is a noun and "advise" is a verb. Be aware of the slight differences in spelling for all these words - you may end up paying for it later!
AFFECT VS. EFFECT
Ah, these two words never fail to confuse endless amounts of students.
BOTH the words affect and effect can be nouns, and BOTH can be verbs. They also both pronounced the same way.
|
Verb
|
Noun
|
|
|
Affect
|
To influence or alter something | see below |
|
Effect
|
To bring something about, make it happen | A change, alteration, influence |
Note: When affect is used as a noun (i.e. an affect), this is a psychological term which is perhaps beyond the scope of GMAT. As far as you're concerned, you can think of affect as a verb only!
So say we have an event which affects something - in which case, it products an effect. Got it? Golly, I hope so. Here are some more examples:
- The death of Ravi's sister affected him deeply.
-
- If you do not effect an immediate improvement in your behaviour, I'll take away your Playstation.
-
- The effects of Obama's speech has inspired millions of people.
-
- How do you think the bad news will affect the students? I don't know what effect it will have on them!
LAY
VS. LIEToo many words…getting confused…methinks I'm going to lay my head down on this pillow for a bit.
- Lay can only be a verb
- Lie can be a verb and a noun
- The past tense of lay is laid. The present participle is laying.
- The past tense of lie (the verb) is lied. The present participle is lying.
Here's a chart to help organize your thoughts:
|
Verb
|
Noun
|
|
|
Lay
|
|
- - |
|
Lie
|
|
An untruth, a fib |
Here are some examples to wrap your head around:
- Jenny lied to her parents about passing her test when she actually failed.
- Albert was lying on the bed, sick with a fever.
- We laid the table and ate dinner.
- They gently laid the baby in the crib.
- The chicken lays an egg everyday.
An easy rule of thumb is to replace the words with sit and set. If sit makes sense (e.g. sit down) then lie should be used (lie down). If the sentence works with set (e.g. set the book on the table) then lay should be used (lay the book on the table). AWESOME!
HANGED
VS. HUNGBoth words are valid paste tenses for the verb "to hang". However, hanged only refers to people (i.e. an execution by hanging!) Yikes! Hung refers to everything else (i.e. I hung a picture on the wall, I hung some curtains).
But not William Hung (see right).
UNINTERESTED VS. DISINTERESTED
If a person is uninterested in something, she's bored with it - she has no interest in the subject.
If a person is disinterested in something, she has no particular reason to approve or disapprove of it - they are neutral in their opinion. Another word which A person is uninterested in something if he or she is bored with it, i.e. has no interest in the subject. A person is disinterested in something if they have no particular reason to approve or disapprove of it - i.e. they are completely neutral in their opinion of it. Another word for disinterested is impartial.
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