Vocabulary Made Easy series: Refine your language skills to crack exams

Students appearing for exams need to improve their language skills in order to express themselves better and score well in such exams.

Students appearing for board exams or competitive exams need to improve their language skills in order to express themselves better and score well in such exams.

Improve your vocabulary and communication skills to score well (HT File)

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

Upbraid (Verb)

Meaning: find fault with (someone); scold

Example: He was upbraided for his slovenly appearance

Tractable (Adjective)

Meaning: (of a person) easy to control or influence

Example: The pair had to adjust their probabilistic model to make the calculations more tractable

Unsparing (Adjective)

Meaning: merciless; severe/ given freely and generously

Example: She had won her mother's unsparing approval

Torpor (Noun)

Meaning: a state of physical or mental inactivity; lethargy

Example: Where physical torpor leads, mental atrophy is sure to follow

Tome (Noun)

Meaning: a book, especially a large, heavy, scholarly one

Example: It looks, in short, like a general reader's fantasy of a scholarly tome

Untempered (Adjective)

Meaning: not moderated or lessened by anything/ (of a material) not brought to the proper hardness or consistency

Example: The products of a technological mastery untempered by political imagination

Unearth (Verb)

Meaning: find (something) in the ground by digging/ discover (something hidden, lost, or kept secret) by investigation or searching

Example: Workmen unearthed an ancient artillery shell

Transgression (Noun)

Meaning: an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offence.

Example: I'll be keeping an eye out for further transgressions

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

1. If this investigation should _______________ anything untoward, payments could be stopped. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? (Unearth, Transgression)
2. Must I read this weighty ___________? Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? ( Tome, Untempered)
3. Can you think of some antonyms for the word Torpor?
4. Can you think of some synonyms for the word Tractable?

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

(Definitions and examples are from Oxford Languages)