CPE Use of English Part Three word formation brainstorming games
Part One: with real answers from Cambridge Proficiency Examination Papers 1
Work in teams of at least two people. With your pens down, choose a word below that you want to brainstorm other parts of speech to, e.g. “global”, “globally”, “globalism”, “globalised”, “globalisation” and “anti-globalist” for the word “globe”. The other teams will do the same, with the first team to shout out one of the words getting first choice.
When your teacher says “Go”, pick up your pen and write down as many different forms of that word as you can in exactly one minute, then put your pens down again and check your answers with the other team. You will get one point for each correct word but lose one point if another team challenges you and the word is wrong in some way. If they challenge you but your word is correct, you get an extra point.
- add
- assume
- botany
- certain
- compare
- complex
- credible
- cycle
- diagnose
- disaster
- distant
- drink
- emit
- environs
- expect
- finite
- lead
- like
- molecule
- necessary
- ordinary
- pair
- please
- politics
- repeat
- reveal
- sequence
- side
- signify
- sleep
- speculate
- virtue
After the game, ask about any words above which you can’t think of how to change.
Play the same game, but this time thinking of as many words as you can that go with one of the prefixes or suffixes below of your choice. The thing you add must be an actual word (so you can’t add “un” to “less” to make “unless”), but you can change the word to make it fit with the affix, e.g. dropping the “e” to go from “scope” to “microscopic”.
able
ancy
ant
ar
ation
ces
con
down
edly
ened
extra
ians
icance
ily
im
in
ing
is
ists
ities
itionally
ive
less
mentally
mis
ous
ptions
re
ssions
ty
un
y
After you finish the game, ask about any affixes above which you can’t think of how to use.
Part Two: with real answers from Cambridge Proficiency Examination Papers 2
Work in teams of at least two people. With your pens down, choose a word below that you want to brainstorm other parts of speech to, e.g. “global”, “globally”, “globalism”, “globalised”, “globalisation” and “anti-globalist” for the word “globe”. The other teams will do the same, with the first team to shout out one of the words getting first choice.
When your teacher says “Go”, pick up your pen and write down as many as you can in exactly one minute, then put your pens down again and check your answers with the other team. You will get one point for each correct word but lose one point if another team challenges you and the word is wrong in some way. If they challenge you but your word is correct, they lose a point.
- advantage
- attach
- bed
- coming
- compare
- condition
- counter
- critic
- danger
- deep
- democracy
- deny
- emit
- evolve
- find
- help
- imagine
- in
- initiate
- instinct
- just
- numerate
- pervade
- refer
- reveal
- revolve
- revolve
- sign
- signify
- specify
- stand
- voluntary
After you finish the game, ask about any words above which you can’t think of how to change at all.
Play the same game, but this time thinking of as many words as you can that go with one of the prefixes or suffixes below of your choice. The thing you add must be an actual word (so you can’t add “un” to “less” to make “unless”), but you can change the word to make it fit with the affix, e.g. dropping the “e” to go from “scope” to “microscopic”.
able
ance
ally
ary
ations
atively
em
en
ence
iable
ically
icantly
ice
ily
in
ings
ise/ize
ive
ively
lessness
ment
ner
ous
out
short
sive
ssions
ths
tised/ tized
un
After you finish the game, ask about any affixes above which you can’t think of how to use.
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Related pages
C2 Proficiency Use of English page
Teaching C2 Proficiency: Interactive Classroom Activities (over 350 pages of photocopiable classroom materials on every part of the test) – NEW
