Comprehension based Vocabulary for CLAT 2022
In earlier editions of CLAT, there were direct questions from vocabulary but now the pattern has changed. In CLAT 2022, there will be comprehension based vocabulary questions.
To answer vocabulary based questions from a comprehension, all you need is sharp interpretation skills.
You need to learn to connect the words and infer the meaning of the whole sentence in order to calculate the meaning of that particular word.
In CLAT and other law entrance exams, you get these types of questions in MCQ form, so from those four options, you have to select the correct answer.
Steps to solve vocabulary questions from comprehension for CLAT:
- Read the complete sentence which contains the word asked in the question. Also, read the previous and successive sentences to that sentence and try to build a certain meaning from them, understand the sense it wants to convey.
- Then fit in the probable meaning of the asked word in the sentence.
- Identify the tone of the word or of the sentence i.e. whether it is pessimistic or optimistic because if the word or the sentence has an optimistic tone then its meaning will also have an optimistic tone. This will help you to delete the options.
- Generally, amongst the options two or three of them will have the same meaning, so try to find out the odd one.
Read the following comprehension and follow the explanations
“Encourage exploration with the hands,” says Jackie Anderson, who taught blind students in Cobb County, Ga., for a decade and helped develop the National Federation of the Blind’s nationwide summer program for blind children.
Advocates point to what they call a Braille literacy crisis in America, despite research showing that visually impaired people have better employment and educational outcomes if they read and write Braille.
To decode Braille’s little bumps, you need highly sensitized fingertips. Help toddlers hone their tactile awareness by burying little objects like marbles, toy cars and small figurines in a sand dish or bowl of rice. Tell the child to find and match them.
A Braille cell consists of three dots in each of two columns that can be raised in different patterns. Anderson likes to introduce young children to the concept using muffin tins and tennis balls. If you can see and your child can’t, you also need to learn Braille.
“Give me 30 minutes, and I can teach you to decipher the code,” says Anderson, who was born blind and has a teenage daughter who has been blind since birth. Let a child run his or her hands over picture books with Braille as you read aloud.
Find a way to write on paper either with an embossing machine (expensive) or a Braille slate and stylus (cheap). Get a Braille labeller, and label everything so that a child can move through an indoor space and understand that these raised bumps describe and name the textures and shapes under their hands.
Edify children to tuck their thumbs and use eight fingertips on a line of Braille cells. Hands move left to right along a line. Beginners should track the same line back before dropping both hands to the next line.
“No scrubbing allowed,” Anderson says, describing the up-and-down scratching to decode an unrecognized cell. Teach them to keep moving, and if needed, shift both hands back and try again.
Remember, literacy is its own kind of freedom. One of Anderson’s fondest memories is a rainy afternoon at her school for the blind in Jamaica when she was allowed to spend hours reading whatever she wanted in the library. “They found me asleep,” she says, “with a pile of books around me.”
Passage from here.
Questions:
Give the meaning of the word ‘hone’ as used in the passage
- (a) Refine
- (b) Stop
- (c) Wreck
- (d) Fuddle
Ans. a )
Now first find in the passage where this word is used ‘To decode Braille’s little bumps, you need highly sensitized fingertips. Help toddlers hone their tactile awareness by burying little objects like marbles, toy cars and small figurines in a sand dish or bowl of rice.’
‘Help toddlers hone their tactile awareness’ this part of the statement conveys an optimistic tone. It talks about helping toddlers in their awareness so from the above options b) and c) could not be the answer as they, if substituted,- will give a negative meaning to the sentence
Option a) suits the best in the meaning conveyed i.e. help toddlers to refine their awareness
Give the meaning of the word ‘decipher’
- (a) Obscure
- (b) Confuse
- (c) Deduce
- (d) Scramble
Ans. c)
Now again let us first locate the use of this word in the passage ‘If you can see and your child can’t, you also need to learn Braille. “Give me 30 minutes, and I can teach you to decipher the code,” says Anderson, who was born blind and has a teenage daughter who has been blind since birth’
Here if you read these sentences you will understand that it is trying to convey about making you understand the code. Now, look for the word in options which has the same meaning as of ‘understand’. So option b) and d) can be struck away directly. Option c) means to understand or to break down the meaning thus it will the answer.
Give the meaning of the word ‘edify’
- (a) Perplex
- (b) Stupefy
- (c) Brutalize
- (d) Instruct
Ans: (d)
Again locate the sentence wherein it is used ‘Edify children to tuck their thumbs and use eight fingertips on a line of Braille cells. Hands move left to right along a line’
This sentence tells about making children learn something or ask them to do something which will help them to learn. Thus from the above options best suitable option will be d) as other options convey a negative meaning and cannot fit in the meaning of the sentence.
Thus in this manner, you will solve the vocabulary questions by connecting the dots and identifying the sense and tone of the sentence. It becomes much simpler if you thoroughly read the sentences wherein the asked words are used and decipher its meaning.
Although the pattern has changed, vocabulary is still important for CLAT. You may still continue to learn new words but also focus on inferring the meaning of the words by its use.
Revised and updated on September 22, 2021.
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Aditya Anand
Contributing author
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