WORD STRESS

Stress in two-syllable words

The artist’s most famous picture shows some women and children in a lovely forest with a purple
mountain behind.
Escape to Scotland, forget about work, just relax and enjoy the scenery!

task 1. Listen and circle the word with a different stress pattern from the others.

Example: money machine mountain message

1. answer agree allow attract

2. middle minute mission mistake
3. compare correct copy collect
4. garden granny guitar grammar
5. complete common careful crazy
6. pronounce provide promise prefer
7. shampoo shoulder shower shopping
8. reason remove receive review

task 2. Complete each of the sentences with one of the words in the box. The word has to
match the stress pattern indicated at the end of the sentence.

Egypt above guitar triumph over trumpet Japan success

1. ‘Where did you put John’s photo?’ ‘It’s ___________________ the door.’ ▪ ■
2. We are going on holiday to ___________________ ■ ▪
3. ‘Do you play any musical instruments?’ ‘I used to play the ___________________.’ ■ ▪
4. The play was a great _________________ ■ ▪
5. ‘Was Jack hurt when he fell off his bike?’ ‘He just got a small cut ___________________ his
left eye.’ ■ ▪
6. David’s quite musical, isn’t he?’ ‘Yes, he plays the ___________________.’▪ ■
7. The business was a __________________. ▪ ■
8. My teacher’s from ___________________ ▪ ■

Words which are both nouns and verbs

They go in the studio next week to record ▪ ■ their debut album.

I bought their latest record ■ ▪ when it came out.

task 3. Decide what stress pattern the words in bold have.

1. You’ve progressed well this year, but I’d like to see even more progress.
2. It started with a few rebels, but now thousands are rebelling against the government.
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3. The man who deserted was found dead in the desert.
4. I refuse to pick up your refuse from the floor.
5. We import too much petrol and the country’s export figures are going down.
6. All members of the group were present when the information was presented.
7. I’m not sure you’re permitted to park here without a permit.
8. We all went to the protest because we wanted to protest about the cuts.

Stress in longer words

Endings that do not change the stress pattern of the word to which they are attached:

ful: forGET - forGETful

ment: emPLOY - emPLOYment
able: beLIEVE - beLIEVable
hood: NEIGHbour - NEIGHbourhood
ness: HAPPy - HAPPiness

Endings that DO change the stress of the word to which they are attached:

ion: EDucate - eduCAtion

ian: eLECtric - elecTRIcian
ic: SCIentist - scienTIFic
ical: biOlogy - bioLOgical
y: SOcial - soCIety

Some endings are themselves stressed:

eer: MOUNTain - mountainEER

ade: LEMon - lemonADE
ee: REfuge - refugEE
ese: PORtugal - PortugESE

task 4. Fill in the stress pattern for the words in each column.

kangaroo eraser president economic affordable

Japanese romantic capable satisfaction philosophy
millionaire insurance comfortable photographic development
guarantee professor effortless politician democracy

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task 5. Complete each of the sentences with one of the words in the box. The word has to
match the stress pattern indicated at the end of the sentence.

accountant biology calculation economics engineer experiment technological scientific

1. ‘What’s Sue doing at college?’ ‘She’s studying ___________________ .’ ▪ ■ ▪ ▪

2. The patients will benefit from ___________________ ▪ ▪ ■ ▪ ▪ advances in medicine.
3. ‘What does Pat do?’ ‘He’s an ___________________ .’ ▪ ■ ▪
4. ‘What do you like best at school?’ ‘I really like ___________________.’ ▪ ▪ ■ ▪
5. ‘What did you do in maths today?’ ‘A really difficult ___________________.’ ▪ ▪ ■ ▪
6. ‘What was the exam like?’ ‘We had an easy ___________________ ▪ ■ ▪ ▪ to do.’
7. There is no ___________________ ▪ ▪ ■ ▪ evidence that the explosion was caused by the
earthquake.
8. ‘What does Maria want to do when she leaves university?’ ‘She wants to be an
___________________.’ ▪ ▪ ■

task 6. Fill in the gaps with a word from the box with the stress pattern given. Listen and check.

biology mathematics history geography sociology chemistry

My favourite subjects at school were sciences, especially ___________________ ■ ▪ ▪ and

___________________ ▪ ■ ▪ ▪ . I’ve always been good with numbers, so I was good at
___________________ ▪ ■ ▪ . I didn’t really like the social science subjects like
___________________ ▪ ▪ ■ ▪ ▪ and ___________________ ■ ▪, and that’s strange because when
I went to university I did ___________________ ■ ▪ ▪.

Families of words with shifting stress

task 7. Match the words to one of the stress patterns.

1. photograph, photographer, photographic 3. technical, technician, technological

2. politics, political, politician 4. competing, competitor, competition


STRESS 1 2 3 4
PATTERN

■ ▪ ▪

▪ ■ ▪

▪ ■ ▪ ▪

▪ ▪ ■ ▪

▪ ▪ ■ ▪ ▪
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