How to solve Analogies

Analogy asks to find the relationship between the pairs of words. The relationship between the words in the question asked is similar to the options, you have to find out the correct option.

Types of Analogies

• Antonyms: Words that have opposite meaning
• Synonyms: Words that have same meaning
• Descriptive: One word describes the other
• Part to Whole: One word is part or piece of the other
• Item to Category: One word belongs to the category of the other
• Degree: One word is more intense than other

Three-Step Bridge Method for solving analogies

1. Step 1: Build a strong bridge (relationship) sentence relating the words in the question pair. The bridge should be as short and clear as possible.
2. Step 2: Use this bridge with each answer choice, inserting them in place of the words in the question pair.
3. Step 3: The answer will be the sentence which is the most logical. If after completing steps 1 and 2, you still have not found the answer pair that works, it may be necessary to adjust the bridge sentence.

Example 1: Bad : Terrible

1. hard : difficult
2. hot : warm
3. funny : hilarious
4. right : wrong
5. young : new

Confusing Words (Part 1)

1. The abhorrent individual was spurned by his fellow citizens because of his aberrant behavior.
2. With her speaking skills, she has the ability to fill the auditorium to its capacity.
3. The minister adjured his wayward congregation to abjure the sins of the flesh.
4. I would accept your excuse, except the part about losing the watch.
5. The number of students who wanted access to the computer labs was in excess of two hundred.
6. The government would often adopt policies that required people to adapt to a harsh regime.
7. The trouble with many adolescents is that they never seem to grow out of adolescence.
8. I need your advice. Please advise me on this.
9. She was confused, displaying ambivalent feelings about the ambiguous situation they'd gotten into.
10. Sometimes it seems more shocking to be amoral than to be immoral .
11. After we have the jeweler appraise the diamond, we will apprise you of its value.
12. When they got the assent of the weather bureau, they allowed the enormous balloon to begin its ascent.
13. I am averse to traveling in such adverse weather conditions.
14. We need a lot of money. She will allot funds according to need.
15. Are you all ready already, or do we have to wait for you?

Confusing Words (Part 2)

1. My favorite show, Seinfeld, is currently doing re-runs; the new episodes will begin presently.
2. I kept a weekly diary during those years that I worked on the dairy farm.
3. If you wish to seem demure, you will have to demur less vociferously.
4. Any cool dessert would taste great out here in the sandy desert.
5. The prisoner tried to devise a clever device to help him escape.
6. She thought her dog would die after it drank that bowl of blue dye.
7. He went from a dilemma to a quandary.
8. The conductor seemed discomfited on the podium by the rude, discomforting behavior of the visiting pianist.
9. They kept their love affair discreet by living discrete lives.
10. You will want a disinterested judge. An uninterested judge, however, is a liability.
11. When asked to disassemble his old jalopy, he agreed, seeming to dissemble.
12. What effect does this have on you? How does it affect you?
13. It was part of the government's economic strategy to direct the military to purchase the most economical material available.
14. We should elect a president before he or she selects members of the cabinet.
15. How did the politicians plan to elicit these obviously illicit campaign funds without getting caught?

Confusing Words (Part 3)

1. The insidious nature of her argument suggests an invidious comparison.
2. There were, for instance, several instances in which the latch failed and the door floor open, just at the the most dangerous instant.
3. In the intense heat, the team of scientists did an intensive study of the extensive crop damage.
4. The scientists were intensely focused on the problem. They studied it intently for months.
5. She made a laudatory speech concerning the students' laudable accomplishments.
6. As he led his soldiers into battle, his feet seemed made of lead.
7. The lightning striking all around them, the sailors proceeded in their task of lightening the cargo.
8. I am loath to associate with people who loathe me.
9. My shoes are so loose that I'm going to lose them.
10. I hope the bank can arrange a loan for me. If not, I hope my sister can lend me some money.
11. A luxuriant tropical garden was planted on the grounds of the most luxurious hotel in town.
12. It has been raining way too much and for too many days.
13. John and Mary thought that studying the martial arts, like judo, would improve their marital relationship.
14. He hardly deserves a medal, nor did he show true mettle when he tried to meddle in our affairs.
15. The moral of this story is that the morale of a military unit is extremely important.

Grammar - Introduction

Grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given language.

The grammar is approached in two different ways: Descriptive and Prescriptive. The descriptive way tries to look at the grammar of any spoken language or dialect as it actually exists and it judges whether a sentence is grammatical or not based on the rules of the speech rather than on a set of rules. The perspective grammar prescribes rules for the proper usage of language.

For MBA Admission Tests, we need to focus on prescriptive grammar.

Parts of Speech

All words in English language are divided into nine categories. These categories are called the Parts of Speech.

1. Nouns: are the names of people, places, animals, things, and abstract ideas.
2. Verbs: are words that indicate what is being done in a sentence, and tell us about the activities of its subject and about states and conditions.
3. Pronouns: are words that are used instead of nouns and have exactly the same functions as nouns.
4. Adjectives: are words that go with or qualify or modify nouns and sometimes pronouns. They are often used to describe the thing that the noun refers to.
5. Adverbs: are words that typically modify verbs. They tell you how, when, where, why or how often an action takes place. They can also modify adjectives, other adverbs and even whole clauses.
6. Determiners: are small words used before nouns to tell you which one, or how many, or whose, and so on. They include articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, that, these, those), possessives (my, his, our, ...) and quantifiers (all, some, no, ...).
7. Prepositions: typically come in front of noun phrases and pronouns and tell you how the noun /pronoun is related to the rest of the sentence in terms of place, time, reason and so on.
8. Conjunctions: are joining words that typically link clauses in a sentence. They can also link nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc.
9. Interjection: are words used to express some sudden feeling or emotion and they are not grammatically related to the other words in a sentence. For example: Hello! Alas! Hurrah! Ah! Oh! Well! etc.                                                    NEXT

Grammar - Terms

Clause: group of related words containing a subject and verb
Gerund: a verb form acting as a noun
Adjective: word that modifies a noun
Participle: verb form acting as an adjective
Adverb: word that modifies a verb, adjective or adverb
Phrase: group of related words not containing a subject and verb
Infinitive: to plus the root of the verb
Preposition: locates something in time or place
Predicate: completer of a sentence
Interjection: command, protest, or exclamation.                                                    NEXT

Noun

There is no fixed definition of Noun. Simply, a noun is a person, place, thing or idea.
Examples
Person: man, woman, teacher, doctor, John
Place: home, office, town, country, India
Thing: table, car, banana, money, music, love, dog, monkey

Countable Nouns

Countable nouns are things that can be counted. For example: Book. You can count the number of books. You may have one, two, three or ten books.

• Countable nouns can be singular or plural.
• Countable nouns use indefinite article a/an.
• Some and Any are used with countable nouns.
• A few and Many are also used with countable noun.

Uncountable Nouns

Uncountable nouns are things which cannot be counter. For example: Milk. You can count bottles of milk or litres of milk, but cannot count milk itself.

• Uncountable nouns are treated as singular.
• Indefinite article a/an is not used with uncountable nouns.
• Some and Any are used with uncountable nouns.
• A little and Much are used with uncountable nouns.

Common and Proper Nouns

A common noun is any non-specific person, place or thing.
A proper noun is any specific person, place or thing: such as names, places, companies.
                                                                                                                                            NEXT