DEVELOPING VOCABULARY

Word formation- NOUN suffixes

1. Decide what type of noun each of these words is and then write the
suffixes in the correct column. See the example.

accuracy actor coincidence happiness interaction movement

participant personality psychologist researcher

Noun - abstract / concrete Noun - person

accuracy (-cy) actor (-or)

coincidence (-ence) participant (-ant)
happiness (-ess) psychologist (-ist)
interaction (-ion) researcher (-er)
movement (-ment)
personality (-ity)

2. Add the suffixes from the first table above to the words in the following
table to form NOUNS (substantives). Sometimes you can add more than
one suffix. Make changes to the words if necessary. Use another color.
Example: 1. humanity (n. humankind) 2. humaneness (n. the moral
necessity for humaneness towards all people)

1. science - scientist 6. invent - invention

2. argue - argument 7. similar - similarity

3. describe - description 8. frequent - frequence

4. intelligent - intelligence 9. speak - speaker

5. sincere - sincerity 10. lonely - loneliness

3. Which suffix can we add to the words? Then think of at least one more
word to form a NOUN (substantive) containing each suffix.

1. free / ______fan__________ a. (2 ) -ure

2. fail / _____press_____________ b. ( 3) -ance

3. import /______ ignor __________ c. (1 ) -dom

 4. safe / ____cruel____________ d. (5 ) -ship

5. friend / ______relation____________ e. ( 4) -ty

In this type of exercise which follows, you should read the whole text to get
a general idea of what it is about. Then read in more detail to decide if the
word you need is plural, or has a negative meaning. Always read to the end
of each sentence containing the gap, not just to the end of the line.

4. Use the word given in CAPITALS at the end of some of the lines to form
a word that fits in the gap in the same line.

Recently a curious experiment was carried out in Edinburg.

(a)______Researchers____________left 240 wallets in different
RESEARCH
parts of the city, leaving them as if their owners had accidentally dropped
them. Each wallet contained a photograph, either of puppies, families, babies
or an elderly couple.
The (b) ___conclusion___________ of the experiment was that
CONCLUDE
if you want your wallet to come back to you, you should keep a photo of a
baby in it since there was a significant (c) _____difference_______ DIFFER
in the responses to the different photos. An unbelievable 88 per cent of the
wallets with a photo of a baby were returned. The second-best result was
perhaps more surprising. Fifty-three per cent of the wallets with puppy photos
found their way back, whilst pictures of families and ederly couples had return
rates of 48 per cent and 28 per cent respectively. Why should the photo of a
baby produce such a result? We know that (d) __activity____________ in
ACTIVE
the section of the brain that is associated with empathy is much more
responsive to baby faces than to adult faces. Perhaps our compassionate
response to small children is really, deep down, a question of
(e) _____protection_____________of the species. PROTECT
However, there would have to be a different (f)
_____explananations________ EXPLAIN
(g) __popularity_____________of the puppies.
POPULAR
All in all though, the leader of the research teams the
(h) __psycologist_____________ Richard Wiseman,
PSYCHOLOGY
 was pleasantly surprised to see how many wallets actually came back. It
seems he underestimated the (i) ___decency____________ DECENT
of ordinary people.

5. Complete the words in the questions with a suffix.

1. What is your reaction_______ to the story about the lost wallets?
2. Why do you think people were more responsive to appereance_______ of
a puppy than to elderly couples?
3. How do you account for the failure______ to return the other wallets?
4. What would you do if you were a participant________ in this experiment?
5. What do you think your purse / wallet says about your personality______?

6. Choose someone in this class and write a short description of what you
think his/her purse/bag or wallet is like, based on their personality.

The person who I choose was Vitória Bauer, and she seems to be a very
organized, smart and responsible person. Consequently I think that in her bag
she takes to school not only all the necessary materials like: a pen, a pencil,
an eraser, a ruler, some markers (of different colors), but also other kinds of
things like a hair brush, an extra face mask and a hand sanitiser gel pocket
tube.
I think that her bag is made of a “normal” kind of cloth, it is red and big,
because she needs a big bag to take all those things to school.