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Professional and Subprofessional · Civil Service Exam

Vocabulary and word meaning

Vocabulary items give you a word inside a sentence and ask for the closest meaning. The sentence is there to be used.

A word you half-know is usually recoverable from context, and the sentence is deliberately built to make that possible. Read the sentence with each option substituted in and discard the ones that break it.

Distractors on these items follow patterns worth recognising: a word that looks similar but is unrelated, a word that means the opposite, and a word that would fit a different sense of the same term. Knowing the patterns is faster than knowing every word.

The Filipino verbal section works identically, with matalinghagang salita - figurative words - in place of English roots.

Worked examples

Try these, then read why.

Written for this platform and generated from the same bank the practice sets draw on. Every wrong option is explained, because knowing why a distractor was tempting is most of the learning.

Which word is closest in meaning to DILIGENT as used in the sentence below?

Her DILIGENT record keeping meant every transaction could be traced.
  1. Ahurried
  2. Bnegligent
  3. Cpainstaking (correct)
  4. Ddiligence

Read the whole sentence before choosing: diligent here means painstaking, so the closest word is painstaking. Substitute your choice back into the sentence. If the sentence changes meaning, the choice is wrong.

  • A This is related to the situation but does not carry the target word's meaning.
  • B This is the opposite sense, which is the reverse of what the question asks for.
  • D This word resembles the target in sound but not in meaning.

Choose the word that correctly completes the sentence.

The two divisions ______ each other, so neither duplicates the work.
  1. Acompliments
  2. Bcomplement (correct)
  3. Ccompliment
  4. Dcomplements

The sentence calls for complement. Words that sound alike rarely share a part of speech. Decide what the slot needs, a noun or a verb, before choosing between them.

  • A compliments means expressions of praise, in the plural, which the sentence does not call for.
  • C compliment means an expression of praise, which the sentence does not call for.
  • D complements means the third person form, which does not follow a plural subject, which the sentence does not call for.

Practise this properly.

Three examples show you the format. Finding out whether vocabulary and word meaning is actually costing you marks takes a measured set, which is what the free diagnostic is for.

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