English · Exam Skills and Methodology

Word formation — root/prefix/suffix analysis & derivation table

Break English words down into their building blocks

  • Foreign languages essential
  • Literature and philosophy essential
  • Experimental sciences essential
  • Mathematics essential
  • Engineering essential
  • Management and economics essential

6 minutes

The academic content is in Arabic, as at the BAC and as in the app.

What the syllabus expects from you

  • Dividing a given word into root + prefix + suffix
  • Completing a prefix/root/suffix table for 3-4 given words
  • Circling silent letters in given words (orthography)

The method

  1. Strip known prefixes/suffixes first; what remains is the root

The common mistakes

  • Misplacing a letter that belongs to the root as part of the suffix

The kind of exercise that comes up at the BAC

  • Root/prefix/suffix table easy

    3-4 words from the text → prefix/root/suffix table

From the lesson

Look at the word kind. Add one small piece to the front, or to the end, and the whole meaning shifts.

The vocabulary

  • root (جذر)
  • prefix (سابقة)
  • suffix (لاحقة)