Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Here is a context clues worksheet on the transitive verb allocate. It means both “to apportion for a specific purpose or to particular persons or things, distribute” and “to set apart or earmark, designate.” Because I was working in an economics-and-finance-themed high school when I prepared this, I suspect I meant students to understand and use it in the sense of allocating capital.

This verb is always used transitively, and never intransitively, so don’t forget your direct object: you must allocate something.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb equivocate. This verb is used only intransitively–so not only is a direct object not required, it would be an error to use one with equivocate. This document’s context clues are keyed to the definition “to avoid committing oneself in what one says.”

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Given the state of ethical life in the United States, I’d like to thing that this context clues worksheet on the adjective devious would bring the word into more frequent usage. It means, as the context clues in this document point toward, “not straightforward,” “cunning,” and “deceptive.” Since there is a lot of this going around, we should supply students a word to use to describe it.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.