Words: The Building Blocks

A strong vocabulary is the foundation of mastering any language. For competitive exams like the BCS, Bank Jobs, and others, questions related to vocabulary are very common and carry significant weight. This section tests a candidate's ability to understand and use words correctly in various contexts. This page provides a comprehensive guide to building your vocabulary by focusing on several key areas: precise meanings, synonyms, antonyms, correct spellings, contextual usage, and the formation of new words. Many English words look or sound similar but have completely different meanings. Understanding these distinctions is crucial for sentence correction and comprehension. Synonyms are words that have the same or nearly the same meaning as another word. Knowing synonyms is vital for vocabulary tests and for making writing more varied and expressive. Antonyms are words that have the opposite meaning of another word. Questions on antonyms are very common in competitive exams. Correct spelling is a fundamental skill. Competitive exams frequently include questions to identify the correctly or incorrectly spelled word from a list. Accommodation, Achievement, Apparent, Bureaucracy, Believe, Business, Cemetery, Committee, Definitely, Diarrhoea, Embarrass, Entrepreneur, Foreign, Fulfil, Grateful, Grammar, Harass, Humorous, Immediately, Jewellery, Knowledge, Leisure, Liaison, Millennium, Miscellaneous, Necessary, Occurrence, Parallel, Possession, Questionnaire, Receive, Recommend, Separate, Scissors, Sergeant, Supersede, Tomorrow, Twelfth, Vacuum, Weird. A single word can function as different parts of speech depending on its role in a sentence. Identifying this function is a common type of question. New words are often formed by adding prefixes (at the beginning) and suffixes (at the end) to a base or root word. A prefix is added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning, often creating its opposite. un- (not): happy → un happy, able → un able, believable → un believable dis- (not, opposite of): like → dis like, agree → dis agree, appear → dis appear im- / in- / ir- / il- (not): possible → im possible, correct → in correct, regular → ir regular, legal → il legal re- (again): write → re write, build → re build, appear → re appear pre- (before): view → pre view, historic → pre historic, judge → pre judge mis- (wrongly): understand → mis understand, spell → mis spell, conduct → mis conduct A suffix is added to the end of a word, and it often changes the word's part of speech. Noun-forming Suffixes: -tion (action → ac tion), -sion (deci sion ), -ment (agree ment ), -ness (happi ness ), -ity (abil ity ), -er (teach er ), -or (act or ), -ist (art ist ), -ship (friend ship ) Adjective-forming Suffixes: -able/-ible (read able , vis ible ), -ful (beauti ful ), -less (hope less ), -ous (danger ous ), -al (nation al ), -ic (hero ic ), -y (rain y ) Verb-forming Suffixes: -ize/-ise (organ ize , real ise ), -en (short en , wid en ), -ify (simpl ify , beaut ify ), -ate (activ ate ) Adverb-forming Suffixes: -ly (slow ly , quick ly ), -ward (back ward ), -wise (clock wise ) Test your vocabulary with these 100+ questions covering synonyms, antonyms, spellings, word meanings, and word formation. This section is designed to mirror the format of BCS and other competitive exams to help you achieve the best possible preparation.