Verbal Study Guide for the NLN NEX

Word Knowledge

On the NLN NEX, your knowledge of words, or vocabulary skills, will be assessed. Based on the question, you may need to use a variety of tools to find the answer, especially if the word is unknown to you. Here are several tactics to use.

Context Clues

When asked about the meaning of a word or phrase, be sure to read around the word and use context clues to decipher it. Let’s look at an example.

The patient in the room down the hall has a voracious appetite; she will not stop eating.

A question may ask you what the word voracious means in the sentence above. Using context clues, we can figure it out. In this case, after the semicolon, the reader is given an example of the word: “She will not stop eating.” Using this clue, voracious cannot mean “weak” or “nonexistent” but rather “big” or “never-ending,” as she keeps eating.

Let’s try again. In the following sentence, there is an unfamiliar word: pseudonym.

Rather than giving patients her real name, the physical therapist uses a pseudonym.

The clue to deciphering this word comes in the beginning of the sentence. The sentence begins with, “Rather than giving patients her real name,” illustrating immediately that the word pseudonym relates to names and possibly fake names. By using context clues, you will likely be able to narrow down the multiple-choice answers and select the correct option.

Roots and Affixes

While some words are very basic and their whole meaning is contained in one part, other words consist of several parts that all contribute to meaning. There may be a root word that is joined to either a prefix or suffix, or both.

Root Words

Root words are smaller segments of words that have meanings of their own. They are often called base words because they are the basis of a new, longer word. Learning popular root words and gaining the ability to recognize them will help you define unfamiliar words. If you know at least the meaning of a segment of the new word, you will most likely be able to answer a word meaning or word usage question.

Let’s look at an example. The root word sen means old and is the basis of words like senior, seniority, and senile. All of these words pertain to old: senior meaning the oldest or most experienced, seniority a status for the old or wise, and senile meaning someone experiencing confusion due to old age.

Here is a list of some common root words that may help you in defining and understanding challenging words:

• circ meaning “round” is used in words like circle and circumference.

• geo meaning “earth” is used in words like geography and geology.

• auto meaning “self” is used in words like autobiography and automatic.

• cred meaning “believable” is used in words like credible and credibility.

• script meaning “to write” is used in words like scripture and prescription.

• psycho meaning “mind” is used in words like psychology and psychopath.

• legal meaning “relating to law” is used in words like legality and illegal.

• act meaning “to move” is used in words like action and inactive.

• therm meaning “heat” is used in words like thermometer and hypothermia.

• bene meaning “good” is used in words like beneficial and benefit.

Prefixes

Prefixes are added to the beginning of a root word to change its meaning. There is actually a prefix in the word prefix! Pre means “before,” telling you the prefixes go at the beginning, or before the root word.

Let’s look at the root word usual. Usual means “normal”; however, this can be quickly changed by adding a prefix. If you add the prefix un, meaning “not,” to the word usual, it becomes unusual, meaning “strange” or “odd.”

Look at this chart for some common prefix examples.

Prefix	Meaning	Examples
semi-	“half”	semicolon, semicircle, semiformal
homo-	“same” or “equal”	homophone, homosexual, homogenous
re-	“again” or “backward”	rewind, repeat, revert, retrace
post-	“after”	postpone, postnatal, postmortem
mis-	“incorrect” or “badly”	mistake, misunderstand, mistook
non-	“not”	nonfat, nonfiction, nonsensical
tri-	“three”	triple, tricycle, triangle
co-	“together” or “mutual”	coexist, cohabitate, coordinate
inter-	“between”	interdisciplinary, interview, intertwine

Suffixes

Suffixes are added to the end of a root word to change its meaning. Suffixes sometimes only change the conjugation or tense of the word, but other times they create a different word entirely.

An example of a suffix only changing the word tense would be the suffix -ed, meaning “in the past.” Adding -ed to the verbs walk, jump, or laugh does not change the meaning of the words, but rather when they are happening.

On the other hand, some suffixes completely change the word’s meaning. For instance, the suffix -less means “without.” So the word home completely changes meaning when -less is added to the end. The new word means “without a home.”

Look at this chart for some common suffix examples.

Suffix	Meaning	Examples
-ward	“relating to direction”	inward, upward, onward
-ible	“capable of being”	edible, audible, possible
-esque	“reminiscent of”	picturesque, statuesque, burlesque
-ship	“position held”	ownership, kinship, internship
-ish	“suggesting” or “like”	childish, girlish, snobbish
-ful	“filled with” or “marked by”	plentiful, doubtful, resentful
-ious	“marked by” or “characterized by”	religious, studious, nutritious
-y	“characterized by”	filthy, stinky, cleanly
-ive	“having the nature of”	creative, decisive, furtive

Synonyms

One type of vocabulary question you will see on the NLN NEX requires you to choose a synonym for a given word. The question may not use the word synonym, but it may ask you to find a word that means the same thing as one of the words in the sentence. The word will be used in a sentence first, and then you’ll need to decide which of four other words has the same or nearly the same meaning. Here is one example:

The young man could not stop gazing at the gorgeous model. Gorgeous means ____.

Answer choices:

• crazy
• lightheaded
• sensible
• beautiful

While any of these choices could fit in different situations, you need to use the context of the sentence to determine the best choice. Which one of the choices would tend to make someone continue to gaze at a person? The best choice is beautiful.

Antonyms

An antonym of a word is the word’s opposite. You may be asked to determine which word has the opposite meaning of a given word, based on the context. Context clues will help you determine what meaning the initial word has; then, you’ll choose the word option that is the most opposite. Here is an example:

We will reach an agreement once everyone has had adequate time to review the documents.

The word that means the opposite of adequate is:

• satisfactory
• acceptable
• suitable
• insufficient

The correct choice is insufficient. It is an antonym of adequate. From the sentence context, we know that adequate must mean “enough.” It makes sense that if people need to review documents to make a decision, they would be given a reasonable amount of time to do so. The adjectives satisfactory, acceptable, and suitable all mean that enough time would be given. However, insufficient stands out from the others in that it is the only one that means something negative or inadequate. We know to choose that as the antonym or opposite meaning.

Frequently Confused Words

One focus of the exam is assessing your word knowledge. A strong vocabulary helps improve your reading comprehension. One challenge, though, is words that are commonly confused due to having similar or even the same spellings and/or pronunciations despite having different meanings. Broadly speaking, these words are called homonyms (although there are some more specific terms for types of homonyms). Here are some commonly confused words:

too, two, to

it’s, its

your, you’re

their, there, they’re

accept, except

advice, advise

affect, effect

When you see words like this, some things that will help are determining if the word is a contraction (and what the full form of the words would be) and determining the context and part of speech. Part of speech refers to the role the word has in the sentence. What “job” is the word doing? Is it a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb? There are other parts of speech as well (pronoun, conjunction, interjection, and preposition), but these are much less likely to come up in the exam.