A BRIEF GUIDE ON SOLVING CONFUSING WORDS QUESTIONS

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English, especially if one has had primary education in a regional language, can be very confusing. A lot of words look similar but have different meanings, while others have same spellings and mean different things depending on their usage in a sentence. As a result it is almost impossible to avoid making mistakes in English, but if you understand the explanations below, you will be able to recognize the words and avoid making such mistakes.

B. Advice and Advise have same meanings, but they have different parts of speech, and hence either one can be used depending on the framing of a statement.

1. (Advise is a verb) : Ex. Doctors generally advise us to use flat footwear for healthy feet.
2. (Advice is a noun) : Ex. Doctors generally give advice to us to use flat footwear for healthy feet.

C. Personal & Personnel are similar in appearance/spelling, and slightly different in pronunciations. But their meanings are very different.

1. Personal is related to or belonging to someone. Ex: Personal laptop, implying that it is used by me for myself, and not by anyone else or not by me for any other activities except for the ones related to me.
2. Personnel: Like staff. Ex. The hospital’s admin personnel are very hard-working.

2. A question could have one statement or multiple statements. Each statement could have 2 pairs of confusing words, of which one is the appropriate word in the statement;or, the statement could have 3 confusing words, of which one fits in the sentence.
A. Statement: “I wanted to give an important message to my colleague, so I requested my brother to give me a remainder/reminder in case I forget”. In this statement:

1. Remainder means something which is leftover; it can be some portion of a meal which we are eating, or some remaining portion of work which we are doing.
2. Reminder means to remind someone to do something, it can be to remind a friend to do an activity or it can be an alert set in your mobile phone to remind you to do an activity.

So, for the above statement, the word “reminder” fits appropriately into the sentence.

B. A statement in a question can at times have 3 words. And one of them is correct in the context. Ex. "I shall get free in 15 minutes, I shall probably / possibly / properly call you immediately after that."

1. Possibly means that there is a considerable probability that the action will be taken, though there is a sizable chance that the action may not be taken also. Possibly is like perhaps. It shall possibly start raining in a couple of days. This means that there is a positive and considerable chance that rains shall start in a couple of days.
   
   In common language, the usage of the word probably indicates higher chances of the action than the usage of the word possibly.
2. Probably indicates that with chances of almost, but lesser than 100%, the action will be done. Ex. The wall clock shall probably be repaired by tomorrow. This conveys that there is a very high positive chance that the wall clock would be repaired by tomorrow.
3. The word properly is related to the quality of something, such as some work. Ex. The lift is working properly for last one week. This means that there is no problem with the working of the lift. It is functioning in the desired manner.

3. Your score can improve exponentially, if you read extensively and do a fair amount of research on common pairs of confusing words. It is easier to choose one answer out of two words in a question statement, as compared to a question where you have to spot the correct word in a sentence out of 4 given options. Also, reading comprehension type of questions will demand greater attention and analysis to be done before answering the corresponding questions. For confusing word questions, if you have done good homework and practice, and have come across the common confusing words through your reading and memorization, then you can save your time in the exam and solve these questions very quickly. For your convenience we have given you a list of such common confusing words, for further practice, at the bottom of this article.

Tricks & Tips

2. Speed : Confusing words questions are easier to solve if you are familiar with the words. There is no calculation or much analysis to be done for getting the right answers. This is unlike the reading comprehension questions or jumbled para questions, where you have to process the given data, interpret it and then do analysis before solving the questions. This will take time. So if you have prepared well for confusing words, you will be able to breeze through these questions and save time to solve remaining questions.

3. Research & read extensively : Read up on various articles on different commonly used confusing words. There are many online resources which can help you with lots of such pairs. Some are very common words, which we shall categorize as easier ones. You will come across these in your daily life very frequently. Some common such pairs are: can/may, accept/except, principle/principal.

But the ones which are difficult are also likely to be asked in exams. So read a lot, make a note of 10 – 20 pairs in a day, read lots of sentences containing these words. This way, you will also understand the different contexts in which these confusing words are used. To give you examples of some rare confusing pairs, discreet/discrete, complacent/complaisant, allude/elude.

4. Practice & test yourself : Apart from reading extensively and memorizing words, practising and assessing yourself through lots of questions would improve your confidence. Our coursein English Language section ofthe General Aptitude category has many practice questions on confusing words. The module tests in the module “Choose Appropriate Word Between 2 Confusing/Similarly Sounding Words” will provide you access to these questions. Practise them as many times as you want. These tests will expose you to variety of confusing words in different contexts.We have covered pairs of similar sounding words as well as similar spelt words and words which are very similar in meaning. The tests are timed, so it will help you test yourself in an examination kind of environment.

5. Familiarize yourself with the pairs / set of confusing words given below and keep adding such new words to your vocabulary every week.
You can refer to the website below for more such words.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words