Vocabulary Made Easy series: Guide to shine in competitive exams

Candidates appearing for competitive exams need to understand the importance of honing their vocabulary skills to crack the exams. Almost every other competitive exam like CAT, XAT, Bank Jobs, etc has a verbal section which the candidates are expected to answer.

Candidates appearing for competitive exams need to understand the importance of honing their vocabulary skills to crack the exams. (Unsplash)

Some of these verbal sections are qualifying in nature making it very detrimental for candidates to secure a minimum mark in order to qualify. Hence, the need to improve the word power is very much the need of the hour for aspirants.

Here's a way to improve your vocabulary. Check out the words for the day and a small quiz to push yourself to improve your word power.

Obliterate (Verb)

Meaning: destroy utterly; wipe out

Example: The city was obliterated, over 250,0000 people were killed and generations poisoned by radiation

Oblivious (Adjective)

Meaning: not being aware of or concerned about what is happening around one

Example: His eyes were closed and he was completely oblivious to what was happening around him

Obnoxious (Adjective)

Meaning: extremely unpleasant

Example: I started with obnoxious colours, brown and red mainly, and worked from there

Obloquy (Noun)

Meaning: strong public condemnation

Example: Some of this obloquy does, however, belong to publishers

Put your thinking cap on and try to answer the following questions to understand how much you have grasped.

1. They often flirted with public ________________ and social danger. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? (Obloquy, Obnoxious)
2. Can you think of some antonyms for the word Oblivious?
3. Can you think of some synonyms for the word Obliterate?

Watch out for this space for your weekly update on improving word power.

(Definitions and examples are from Oxford Languages)