Tag Archives: context clues

You might find this context clues worksheet on the transitive verb placate useful. This verb is only used transitively, so don’t forget your direct object: you must placate something, or more likely, someone. In any case, this is another of those strong verbs students would do well to use in expository prose.

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’s a context clues worksheet on the verb obtain as a transitive verb; transitively it means “to gain or attain usually by planned action or effort.” Reading these clues, students will probably say this means “to get,” which is of course quite close. I suggest asking them what it takes to get something they want, or variations of that question, and you will eventually induce in them their understanding that to “get” things requires plans and effort.

Incidentally, obtain as an intransitive verb means “to be generally recognized or established: PREVAIL.” It’s seldom used intransitively these days, but a sample sentence (should you decide to develop a context clues worksheet for this usage) would be something like” “In mid-August, hot and humid conditions obtained in New York City.”

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.

Because I work in a economics- and finance-themed high school, I’m almost embarrassed to say that I just now wrote this context clues worksheet on the adjective fiscal. Anyway, here it is if you can use 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.

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun circumstance. This word is used mostly in the plural, and I’ve written the context clues to reflect that. Nonetheless, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (the dictionary of record at Mark’s Text Terminal), lists it in the singular, which is how I too list 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.

Given that it’s the emotion that many struggling learners feel at school, this context clues worksheet on the noun misery should be useful, if nothing else, in helping students match concept with reality, or theory with practice, if you will. Actually, it will also help them develop the fundamental reading skill of identifying words from context in prose.

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.

Since I needed one recently to help students with a reading assignment in global studies, I wrote this context clues worksheet on the verb exacerbate. This verb is only used transitively, so don’t forget your direct object. Generally speaking, you must exacerbate something: the clogged toilet, the mess in the kitchen, the irritation of your spouse.

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’s a context clues worksheet on en route. Merriam-Webster says it can be used as both an adjective and an adverb, but I’ve only used it as an adverb, and I cannot, off the top of my head, think of how it might be used as an attributive adjective (The en route barbarian checked his iron-age technology, maybe?), though it makes sense (I am en route) as a predicate. It’s probably worth taking a look a this definition from Merriam-Webster’s website, which provides a couple of useful definitions, as well as noting that en route, in terms of popularity, is in the top ten percent of words.

So it’s worth teaching to our students, at the very least, by the time they graduate from high school.

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.