ENGLISH FOR TEST PREP and more...

CAT, GRE, GMAT, SAT, TOEFL, IELTS, CLAT ...the VERBAL AFFLUENCE  IS HERE....

  For most parts, humans require closure. It’s comforting to have answers. It’s satisfying to see the jigsaw complete. It’s healing to see everything’s okay in the end. But what about the frayed ends that jut out of the narration and tie in nowhere? What about those nuggets that make guest appearances and never come back? Khaled Hosseini’s third book, And the Mountains Echoed, is full of such nuggets. Lots of small stories weaving in and out of the main plot. So much so that sometimes the main plot takes a back seat. And the Mountains Echoed opens with the narration of a fable by a father, Saboor, to his children Pari and Abdullah in the year 1952. Saboor is telling them a story about a div who takes away a father’s dearest son as a test of his sacrifice and a punishment for the village. Next morning, Saboor and Pari are slated for a long journey by themselves. Abdullah, the loving brother, can’t bear to see Pari being taken away and insists on joining them. After much persevera...

The story and its moral:  "A cottager and his wife had a Hen that laid a golden egg every day. They supposed that the Hen must contain a great lump of gold in its inside, and in order to get the gold they killed it. Having done so, they found to their surprise that the Hen differed in no respect from their other hens. The foolish pair, thus hoping to become rich all at once, deprived themselves of the gain of which they were assured day by day...."

Manoeuver  - Man, the price you pay for borrowing from French is high. This one goes back to French main + oeuvre "hand-work."  Medieval  - The medieval orthography of  English  even lays traps for you: everything about the MIDdle Ages is MEDieval or, as the British would write, mediaeval. Memento  - Why would something to remind of you of a moment be spelled "memento?" Well, it is. Millennium  - Here is another big word, large enough to hold two double consonants, double [l] and double [n]. Miniature  - Since that [a] is seldom pronounced, it is seldom included in the spelling. This one is a "mini ature;" remember that. Minuscule  - Since something minuscule is smaller than a miniature, shouldn't they be spelled similarly? Less than cool, or "minus cule."

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The easiest way to learn English for your test prep is by starting to really look at words...words which riddle you, mock you and quite simply escape you. Any language is essentially about  words, you may differ on that because, it's the grammar which you find most baffling....