ASVAB Word Knowledge Study Guide

context sometimes when you're reading

and you come across a word that you

don't know you can use context clues to

make an educated guess as to what the

word means now when you're looking at

the word you don't know you don't want

to just look right before and after the

word you usually want to look at the

sentence before and the sentence after

and sometimes you even have to look at

the whole

paragraph to get an idea of what that

unfamiliar word

means now there are some clues that we

can look at to help determine what the

bird means one thing you can look at is

a description sometimes a sentence or a

sentence following or before the

unfamiliar word will give you a

description for instance the green

feathered maau

well you may not know the word maau but

by seeing green

feathered you can infer that it is some

kind of a bird with green

feathers another clue you could look at

are synonyms if you hear the soft and

supple leather well since you have soft

here and then Supple both describing

leather you can figure out that Supple

probably has something to do with being

soft and in reality it means moldable

it's easily moldable and it is somewhat

soft to be able to do that we'll go

ahead and note that this one was our

bird now another clue you can look for

are antonyms Angie is sweet she doesn't

have a malevolent bone in her body well

you may not know what malevolent means

but you probably know what sweet means

and if she isn't malevolent and she is

sweet then you can figure out malevolent

is something bad something negative the

opposite of sweet and in reality

malevolent means

evil another clue you can look for are

definitions sometimes the sentence

before after or part of the same

sentence your word is in will just give

you the definition of the word for

instance the Akida an eggl mammal native

to Australia and then they might tell

you some interesting fact about the Aida

well in commas right after a kidna is

the definition of an idna an eggling MML

native to Australia so you know what it

is right

there the last clue you can look for is

tone is the rest of this paragraph

positive negative happy scared if you

have a paragraph that's all One Tone

then the word probably has something to

do with that if it's a scary tone then

this may be a word that is has to do

with something scary if it's positive it

may be a happy kind of word so you can

always take that into consideration

whenever you are taking your educated

guess so once you've looked at Clues and

you've tried to figure out looking

before and after the sentence your word

is in looking at the whole paragraph

seeing if you can find a description a

synonym an antonym a definition or

figure out the tone surrounding that

unfamiliar word you want to take a guess

as to what the word means and then you

want to reread the sentence to see if it

makes sense to you and ask yourself does

it make sense so if we were to insert

bird here the green feathered bird well

something that has feathers and we have

bird after it that makes sense so that

one would

work the soft and supple Leather So if

we know it means something else soft

maybe moldable we could say the soft in

moldable leather the soft in flexible

leather any kind of word like that that

you put in that was similar to soft

would work it would make sense in your

sentence okay we were thinking evil here

something the opposite of sweet Angie is

sweet she doesn't have an evil bone in

her body that makes sense she is sweet

she doesn't have an evil

bone now the Aida sentence is a little

different if they plug in a definition

for you then it's a little harder to

check you would just say an egg laying

mammal native to Australia and then

maybe tell the sentence after that point

because the definition is already there

for you there's not really a synonym for

a kidna or anything else you could have

come up with for what that one

meant and once you've checked to make

sure they all make sense then you have a

pretty good idea of what that word means

and you can see how using these context

clues of looking for a description a

synonym an antonym a definition or the

tone of a paragraph can help you figure

out that pesky unfamiliar

word many times readers come across

words that they are unfamiliar with so

it's important that readers understand

how to determine the definition of a

word based on its context this means

looking at the words around it and how

the word is used in the sentence

let's look at a couple of examples this

first example says the elderly scholar

spend his evenings hunched over Arcane

text that few other people even knew

existed so the unfamiliar word here is

Arcane but you will see that you can

pretty much determine the definition of

that word based on the words around it

here we see the word elderly coming

before scholar so if only an elderly

scholar would be studying these text

then it means that it must be some kind

of complex subject that only someone who

has acquired much knowledge and wisdom

would understand and then we also see

that it says that few other people even

knew existed so that means it's

something rare or something that only a

few people would know about so here we

have easily and quickly determined the

definition of of

arcan this next sentence says Ron's

falty to his parents was not shared by

Karen who disobeyed disobeyed their

every command now you'll notice here

that there's not very many words that

tell us the definition of Fieldy instead

we see words that tell us what fty is

not because here it says Karen who

disobeyed their every command here Ron

is being contrasted with Karen so if

felty is not disobeying their every

command then felty must mean obeying or

being faithful to because notice here

we're seeing that Karen disobeys their

every command but Ron does not so Ron

must mean not disobeying in other words

it means obeying so you see here how by

looking at context clues a reader can

quickly determine the definition of a

word and although it may not be the

exact definition it generally generally

will be the definition for that word in

that particular sentence and so this can

be very helpful because it helps a

reader be more efficient because

determining the definition of a word

based on context is much quicker than

Consulting a dictionary or a

thesaurus denotation and connotation

denot a is the literal meaning of a word

the dictionary definition what you would

find if you pulled out Webster's

Dictionary and looked this word up the

connotation of a word is the whole

literal meaning plus all the emotions

that word might evoke now connotation is

more subjective if someone has had

certain experiences or feels a certain

way about a word or has memories

associated with a word they may feel a

different way when they see a word than

someone who hasn't had those same

experiences so connotation can be

different for each reader let's look at

at some

examples cheap versus

inexpensive now both cheap and

inexpensive

mean not costing a lot of

money dictionary definition they both

mean not costing a lot of money now when

you hear the word cheap you some times

think low quality you think if it's

cheap it doesn't cost a lot of money

because it's got low quality where with

inexpensive it's more of a neutral word

you just

think not costing a

lot this one doesn't have the same

connotation and expensive doesn't make

you think that you're getting a lower

quality item where something cheap might

make you think that let's look at

another example rat a rat is

actually a longtailed

rodent but sometimes people are going to

use rat in a sentence that doesn't quite

mean a longtailed rodent they're using

it expecting you to get a certain

connotation of someone being dirty or

Sleazy and so someone may say he is such

a rat and it means that it's a sleazy

person he is a sleazy person now this

one is a little bit special it's one of

those that you can think about the

connotation and think about who the

reader is if the reader is someone that

likes rats it's an animal lover or

that's even had a rat for a pet then

they may not think oh rats are dirty

rats are sleazy they may think oh

they're such cuddly creatures and they

may just think of them more in the

longtailed rodent situation but that's

where connotation is more subjective and

most people will still understand that

in certain sentences rat is being used

to mean something

negative now let's look at some examples

with the word snake and figure out which

one is showing denotation and which one

is showing

connotation if he weren't such a snake

we could rely on him to tell the truth

so really a snake is a reptile that

slithers along the ground but certain

connotations come with a snake people

may think of someone dishonest or

someone

unreliable and so we have to look and

see if in this sentence they're talking

about an actual reptile or if they're

talking about a person that maybe isn't

honest or reliable and in this sentence

you see the word rely and Truth which

kind of tell you you're may be looking

at the meaning that isn't so literal if

he weren't such a reptile slithering

along the ground we could lie him to

tell the truth well that doesn't make

much sense if he weren't such a liar or

a distrustful person or an unreliable

person we could rely on him to tell the

truth since this one has more to do with

what you might think a snake

means then what the literal meaning of a

snake is this one is showing the

connotation of the

word you're thinking more of a LI or a

distrustful

person now let's look at the next

sentence one of the largest types of

snakes is the boa constrictor in this

one are we talking about reptiles one of

the largest types of reptiles that

slither along the ground is the boa

constrictor or is it a person that

doesn't tell the truth one of the

largest types of people that don't tell

the truth is the boa constrictor that

one doesn't make much sense this one

they give you an example of an actual

snake so you can tell this is the

literal meaning which is going to be the

denotation so you can see that

understanding if a word is using a

connotation or denotation is going to

help you understand what the sentence is

about when you are reading understanding

if you're looking at the denotation or

connotation of words can make a world of

dis difference to that sentence

meaning multiple meaning words some

words are spelled exactly the same but

they have different meanings and

different contexts so you have to look

at context clues to figure out which

version of the word you have in your

sentence one way you can do that is by

looking to see if the word is a noun or

a verb the grammatical category that the

word is can determine what the word

means and vice versa if you aren't sure

of the pronunciation but you know which

version of the word is being used you

can figure out what the part of speech

is so let's look at our first example

trip trip can be a

vacation which is a noun or it can mean

to fall over something which is a

verb so when we look at our sentences

she took a trip to

Colorado if you aren't careful you might

trip over that

step and this sentence she took a trip

to Colorado she's taking a vacation so

you know this is a noun alternately you

could say oh a trip is a thing you might

take so it's a noun so it has to mean

vacation if you aren't careful you might

trip over that step this one is being

used as a verb so you know it means you

might fall over that step alternately

you could say you might trip over that

step oh in this sentence trip is

something you're doing so it has to be a

verb in this sentence so either way

finding out if it's a noun or a verb can

help you figure out which version of the

word you're using in that

sentence let's look at another example

degree degree has at least three

different meanings and this one's a

little trickier because they are all

nouns unit of temperature is a noun a

title earned at graduation if you earn a

degree in

astrophysics that is a noun or the

amount or extent of something is a noun

so finding the part of speech won't help

you determine meaning with this

particular example but reading the

sentence and using context clues can

help help you figure out which one we're

talking

about he didn't notice when the

temperature Rose

1° okay and this

one he didn't notice when the

temperature Rose 1° you can look at

temperature to know that this one is

talking about a unit of temperature so

you're using your context clues to

figure out the meaning of this

word our next one the business is only

hiring someone with a degree so are they

hiring someone with a unit of

temperature everyone has a temperature

of something are they hiring only people

that have earned a title through

graduating or are they only hiring

people with an amount or extent and that

one didn't really go any further so it

wouldn't be the amount or extent of

something so this one if you sub in

their title earned at graduation this

business is only hiring someone who is

graduated this one is going to have to

do more

with title at

graduation and then our last example it

was hard to tell the degree to which he

really cared about the outcome and this

one did he was it hard to tell the

temperature to which he cared about the

outcome the title earned at graduation

or the amount or extent to which he

really cared and in this one it's the

amount or extent to which he cared maybe

he didn't care that much about this and

so it was hard to tell or maybe he was

keeping his emotions inside and so it

was still hard to tell the degree to

which he cared so whenever you're

finding words that could mean more than

one thing are special multiple meaning

words you want to look and see the

context around the word look at the

whole sentence to see what would make

sense and if you know multiple meanings

of a word try each definition that you

know to see which one makes sense so

you're understanding the sentence

correctly those multiple meaning words

can be

tricky prefixes suffixes and root words

have you ever been reading a book and

come across a word that you've never

seen before well if you can break that

word down into prefixes suffixes and

root words then you can probably figure

out what the word means for instance

orthography Maybe word you've never seen

before but if we break it down into its

prefix

Ortho its root word

graph and its suffix y then we might be

able to figure out what the word means

Ortho means

correct or

straight graph means write or Draw

and y means the state or condition

of so if we put all those together we

can

get the

state of

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being

written

correctly and when we compare the

definition we came up with with our

actual definition you can see they're

pretty close the state of being written

correctly writing

words using the proper letters so you

got a pretty good idea just by breaking

the words down into a prefix a root word

and a suffix and figuring out what those

meant and even if you only knew graph

had something to do with writing you

would have an idea that orthography had

to do something with writing let's look

at another example geometric we'll break

down into our

prefix

Geo our root word

Metra and our suffix

i Gio means

Earth and we put that with Metra which

means

measure and I means having to do

with so if we put all of those together

we can come up

with having to

to

do with

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measuring the

earth now this one isn't quite as close

to the actual definition relating to the

branch of mathematics that has to do

with measuring points lines and angles

but it does have measuring in there you

would be able to tell from the root word

measure the geometric is going to have

something to do with measuring so if you

ever come across a word word that you

don't know first try to figure out what

the prefix is the root word is and the

suffix is so that you can maybe get an

idea of what the word means you can see

how important prefixes suffixes and root

words are to understanding what a word

means many times it is important to be

able to identify two words that are

synonyms now some words are perfect

synonyms and other words are nearly

synonyms rarely are you going to find

perfect synonyms because you're not

going to be able to generally find two

words that have the same definition so

generally what you're looking for are

two words that are nearly synonyms

meaning they have almost the same

definition so we have the word super

flowest up here on the board which means

more than needed so if I ask you how

your day was going and you said my day

has been wonderful extraordinary out of

this world unbelievable I could say that

you were being super flowless in your

description of your day because you were

using more words than needed so we need

to find a synonym that goes along with

this word so we have a which says

senseless so it is senseless to use more

words than needed so we'll put a star

next to a because that could be it B

says unique unique and superlow

definitely are not

synonyms we come to C which says

excessive that's a pretty good for super

flous D is unwanted we could say that

superlow means unwanted

because if you use more words than

necessary then you could say some of

those words are unwanted but I would say

that excessive is a closer synonym than

unwanted so we'll x that out as well

then we come to e which means obstinate

that obviously is not a synonym for

superflow so we come down to senseless

and excessive and so we're not going to

find a word that means exactly the same

thing as super flow but we can find a

word that is very close so we're looking

for the closest synonym and so some

people might disagree with me here but

I'm going to say that c is the closest

synonym to superflow so we're going to

go with C which is the word excessive so

remember you're not finding two words

that have exactly the same definition

but instead you want to go through the

words you're provided with and mark off

the ones you know or wrong and then

narrow it down a little bit and then

from there decide which word you think

is a synonym of the word you're looking

at prefixes suffixes and root wordss

have you ever been reading a book and

come across a word that you've never

seen before well if you can break that

word down into prefixes suffixes and

root words then you can probably figure

out what the word means for instance

orthography may be a word you've never

seen before but if we break it down into

its prefix ortho

it's root word

graph and its suffix

y then we might be able to figure out

what the word means Ortho means

correct or

straight graph means write or

Draw and y means the state or condition

of so if we put put all those together

we can

get the

state of

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being

written

correctly and when we compare the

definition we came up with with our

actual definition you can see they're

pretty close the state of being written

correctly

writing words using the proper letters

so you got a pretty good idea just by

breaking the words down into a prefix a

root word and a suffix and figuring out

what those meant and even if you only

knew graph had something to do with

writing you would have an idea that

orthography had to do something with

writing let's look at another example

geometric we'll break down into our

prefix

Geo our root word Metra and our suffix i

Gio means

Earth and we put that with Metra which

means

measure and I means having to do

with so if we put all of those together

we can come up

with having to to

do with measuring

the

earth now this one isn't quite as close

to the actual definition relating to the

branch of mathematics that has to do

with measuring points lines and angles

but it does have measuring in there you

would be able to tell from the root word

measure that geometric is going to have

something to do with measuring so if you

ever come across a word that you don't

know first try to figure out what the

prefix is the root word is and the

suffixes so that you can maybe get an

idea of what the word means you can see

how important prefixes suffixes and root

words are to understanding what a word

means e

when a reader comes across an unfamiliar

word it's important that they know

techniques to understanding the word's

definition one way to determine a word's

definition is by looking at the prefix

and suffix of the word although there

are many words in the English language

many of those words share a common

prefix or suffix so by understanding the

meaning of that prefix or suffix the

reader can then determine the likely

meaning of the word so one way to

determine word meaning is structural

analysis and that's by looking at the

prefix the root and the suffix all of a

word so take the word unacceptable for

example here you have the root word

except that's because that can be a word

in itself and then here you have the

prefix un and the suffix

able the prefix is always going to come

before the root word and the suffix is

always going to come after the root word

now notice I said the root word is the

word that can stand alone I understand

that able can also stand alone and is a

word but in this case it's a suffix so

if you saw an or able written by

themselves you would see it written like

this that's because the dash represents

the word so here since un is a prefix

the word comes after the prefix and here

with AEL the word becomes comes before

AEL because AEL is the suffix so say you

didn't understand what unacceptable

meant well you could look at able and

you know that means able pretty much and

so you know acceptable must mean able to

accept well un you know means not so

from words like unprofessional because

unprofessional means not professional it

means the opposite of so you know that

un means not acceptable it's something

that's not able to be accept it so there

by using the prefix and the suffix of

the word and knowing the meanings of

those the reader can determine the

meaning of the word unacceptable now

some words like backward don't have both

a prefix and a suffix they just have a

suffix so back is is this um the root

word and word is the suffix so say you

didn't know what what backward meant but

you knew what the root word meant you

knew what backman but you remember the

word toward which also has the same

suffix and you know that means going

somewhere so you could um get an idea

that this suffix has something to do

with Direction so since you see the root

word back you mean it goes you know it

means going back to and so that's

another example of how to use the prefix

or the suffix to determine the meaning

of the word

and some words just have a prefix uh

this word for example has a prefix and a

suffix but no root word here bio is a

prefix andology is also a suffix and um

they share that o and so you could look

at this and think okay I don't know what

this means but I know I've seen the word

bio before and the word biography well

that's a book about someone's life so

bio must mean

life and then what does ology mean well

I've heard of archaeology and so that

must mean um the study of something

because you're studying something so

ology means the study of so by knowing

the prefix and the suffix and what they

mean of this word you can uh conclude

that this word most likely means the

study of life so it's important to

understand common prefixes and suffixes

so that you can um determine the meaning

of an unfamiliar word

understanding how words relate to each

other can often add meaning to a passage

so it's important to understand synonyms

and antonyms synonyms are words that

mean the same thing and antonyms are

words that mean opposite things so take

for example the words dry and

arid those words are synonyms because

they pretty much mean the same thing

they have similar definitions now the

words dry and wet are ant

because they have opposite definitions

they mean the opposite thing now

consider these words

friendly

and

collegial we would consider these words

synonyms however they do have slightly

different meanings friendly means more

on an intimate setting just a friendship

whereas collegial means something more

of like an an academic or business

relationship however we still say these

are synonyms even though they have

slightly different definitions because

if two words had exactly the same

definition then we wouldn't need two

different words so it stands to reason

that synonyms are still going to have

slightly different meanings now

sometimes words are so different that

they cannot be synonyms even though they

are somewhat alike like consider the

words hot and warm you would say yes

these words are alike but the

definitions are different enough we

wouldn't call the call them synonyms so

like take this sentence for example he

burned his hand on the hot stove

now if we said that hot and warm were

synonyms then we could Rel replace

hot with warm and the cence would say he

burned his hand on the warm stove but

that doesn't really make sense because

you don't think of someone burning their

hand on something that's warm so as you

can see hot and warm means similar

things but they are not synonyms because

they are too different in meaning so the

important thing to take from this is

that synonyms are words that have exact

or similar meanings and dry and wet are

words that have opposite

meanings understanding how words relate

to one another can be important to

understanding a text so it's important

to understand synonyms and antonyms

synonyms are words that have similar

meanings and antonyms are words that

have opposite meanings so let's look at

some examples dry and arid are synonyms

because dry and arid have similar

definitions dry and wet are antonyms

though because they have opposite

definitions now some words like hot and

warm have similar definitions but

they're not synonyms see hot and warm

aren't synonyms or antonyms because

they're definitely not opposites but

they're not similar enough to be

considered synonyms although you may

think of them as the same thing look at

this sentence he burned his hand on the

hot stove if you were to replace hot

with warm the sentence would no longer

make sense because it would would say he

burned his hand on the warm stove well

people don't burn their hand on

something that's warm they burn their

hand on something that's hot so it's

important to realize that hot and warm

are not synonyms or antonyms now down

here I have listed some pairs of

antonyms light and dark good and bad

right and left notice these are total

opposites so things like black and gray

are not is that's not a pair of antonyms

because black and gray are not opposites

and they're not simp enough to be

synonyms so they're not synonyms or

antonyms and some words just don't have

an antonym like what would be the

antonym of chair it doesn't have one so

look at this list right here red fast

skinny and sweet every word in this

series has a clear antonym except for

red there's no clear antonym of red but

obviously the antonym of fast would be

slow uh skinny would be fat and sweet

would be bitter so it's important to

understand that synonyms are words that

have similar meanings and antonyms are

words that have opposite meanings but in

order for words to be synonyms the

meanings have to be very close and for

the words to be antonyms the definitions

have to have opposite definitions