Lexis and Structure

🟢 Lite — Quick Review (1h–1d)

Rapid summary for last-minute revision before your exam.

Lexis and Structure — Quick Facts

Lexis = the total stock of words in a language. Structure = how words are arranged to form meaningful sentences. In WAEC English, Lexis and Structure tests your vocabulary, word formation, and sentence construction skills.

Key Areas Tested:

• Word formation (suffixes, prefixes, root words)
• Synonyms and antonyms
• Homophones and near-homophones (e.g., practice/practise, affect/effect)
• Collocations (e.g., “make a decision,” “take medicine” — not “do a decision”)
• Word classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb)
• Sentence transformation (active ↔ passive, direct ↔ indirect speech)

⚡ WAEC Exam Tip: In the Lexis section, always eliminate options that look similar. WAEC often tests confusable words — if you know the exact meaning of each word in the option list, you can rule out wrong answers quickly. For the structure section, identify the tense and subject-verb agreement before selecting your answer.

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🟡 Standard — Regular Study (2d–2mo)

Standard content for students with a few days to months.

Lexis and Structure — Study Guide

Lexis: Vocabulary and Word Knowledge

Word Formation: English builds words through affixation (adding prefixes/suffixes), compounding, and conversion (changing word class without changing form).

• Prefixes that change meaning: un- (not), re- (again), pre- (before), mis- (wrongly), dis- (opposite), anti- (against), super- (above), sub- (below), inter- (between)
• Suffixes that change word class: -ment (verb→noun: develop→development), -tion (verb→noun: educate→education), -ful (noun→adjective: care→careful), -ly (adjective→adverb: quick→quickly), -able/-ible (verb→adjective: drink→drinkable)
• Negative prefixes: un- (unhappy), in- (invisible), im- (immature), ir- (irregular), dis- (disagree)

Common Confusable Words:

Word	Meaning
affect (verb)	to influence
effect (noun/verb)	result / to bring about
practice (noun)	habitual action
practise (verb)	to perform repeatedly
advice (noun)	recommendation
advise (verb)	to recommend
licence (noun)	permit
license (verb)	to grant permit
stationery (noun)	writing materials
stationary (adj)	not moving

Collocations — Common Pairs:

• “broad daylight,” “heavy rain,” “slight chance,” “strong accent”
• “keep a promise,” “make an effort,” “take a risk,” “do research”
• “deeply concerned,” “fully aware,” “strongly believe,” “bitterly disappointed”

Structure: Sentence Construction

Sentence Types:

• Simple: One independent clause. “The teacher explained the lesson.”
• Compound: Two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, yet, so, for, nor). “The bell rang and the students left.”
• Complex: One independent clause + one or more dependent clauses. “When the teacher arrived, the students stood up.”
• Compound-Complex: Two or more independent clauses + at least one dependent clause.

Clause Elements: Subject + Verb + Object + Adverbial (SVOA) “The farmer planted maize in the field last Saturday.” (S=farmer, V=planted, O=maize, Adv=in the field, Adv=last Saturday)

Sentence Transformation in WAEC: The WAEC paper frequently requires you to rewrite sentences without changing the meaning:

• Active to Passive: Object + be + past participle + by + subject
• Direct to Indirect Speech: backshift tenses, change time expressions
• Simple to Complex: expand a phrase into a dependent clause
• Simple to Compound: join two simple sentences with a conjunction

⚡ Common Mistakes to Avoid:

• Using “in” vs. “on” vs. “at” incorrectly in collocations
• Confusing “fewer” (countable) with “less” (uncountable)
• Misplacing modifiers — keep adjectives close to the nouns they modify
• Mixing up relative pronouns: “who” for people, “which” for animals and things, “that” for defining clauses

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🔴 Extended — Deep Study (3mo+)

Comprehensive coverage for students on a longer study timeline.

Lexis and Structure — Comprehensive Notes

Deep Dive into Lexical Ambiguity and Semantic Relations

Synonymy and Antonymy: Synonyms are words with the same or nearly the same meaning (e.g., happy/glad/joyful). Antonyms are words with opposite meanings (e.g., hot/cold, accept/reject). WAEC tests your ability to identify the most appropriate synonym in context — not just any synonym, but the one that fits the sentence stylistically and semantically.

Denotation vs. Connotation:

• Denotation: the literal dictionary meaning
• Connotation: the emotional or cultural associations “Slim” and “skinny” are synonyms denotatively, but “skinny” carries a negative connotation in most contexts.

Polysemy and Homonymy:

• Polysemy: one word with multiple related meanings (e.g., “head” — part of body, leader, front)
• Homonymy: words spelled/pronounced the same but unrelated in meaning (e.g., “bank” — river bank vs. financial institution)

Morphological Analysis: Understanding morphemes (the smallest meaningful units) helps with unfamiliar words:

• “Unprecedented” = un- (not) + precedent (existing before) + -ed (past tense)
• “Miscommunication” = mis- (wrong) + commun (common) + -ic- + -ation

Phrasal Verbs (High Frequency for WAEC):

• bring about, carry out, come across, find out, give up, go through, look forward to, make up, put off, set up, take off, turn down, work out

Structural Patterns in WAEC Objective Questions:

1. Vocabulary in Context (Objective Test — Paper 1): “By the time the rescue team arrived, the fire had already done ___ damage to the building.” Options: (a) unspeakable (b) unshakeable (c) unaccountable (d) unavailability Answer: (a) — unspeakable (cannot be expressed in words, implying immense damage). “Unspeakable damage” is a collocation.

2. Sentence Transformation (Paper 2 — Essay/Structure): Direct: “The teacher said, ‘Submit your assignments tomorrow.’” Indirect: The teacher said we should/must submit our assignments the following day.

3. Word Formation (Gap Fill): “The judge’s ___ decision was praised by all.” (JUSTIFY → “just” is the root → JUST) Answer: “just” → the base word is “just,” and the suffix “-ify” creates “justif-y”

WAEC Past Question Patterns:

• Antonym questions where the negative form uses a prefix (un-, dis-, in-)
• Collocation matching — matching words with their correct collocates
• Word formation from given base words (e.g., “nation” → nationalise, nationalisation)
• Sentence transformation requiring precise tense knowledge
• Error identification — spotting the structurally incorrect sentence among options

⚡ WAEC-Specific Exam Tips:

1. In multiple-choice Lexis questions, cover the options and read the sentence with the blank. Ask yourself: “What kind of word goes here?” — then look for the option that matches your prediction.
2. For collocation questions, trust your instinct — if “heavy rain” sounds right, it probably is. Avoid overthinking.
3. In sentence transformation questions, keep the meaning exactly the same. Only the grammatical form should change.
4. For word formation, identify the root word first, then determine which suffix or prefix produces the correct word class and meaning.
5. In error-spotting questions, read the entire sentence to identify what the intended meaning is, then locate the specific word or phrase that contradicts that meaning.
6. Build a “confusable words” revision list — keep adding new ones you encounter in practice papers and revise them weekly.

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