The Verbal Skills section of the HSPT is made up of five question types, one of which is word classification questions. Word classification questions are unfamiliar to many students, so we’ve put together some tips for approaching these types of questions.
If you’re struggling with word classification questions, you can also check out our comprehensive HSPT workbook which includes tons of word classification practice questions, along with more than 2500 practice questions covering all five sections of the HSPT, and three full-length practice tests.
Word classification questions on the HSPT ask you to find the answer choice that is different from the rest of the answer choices. Let’s go through a couple of example problems to teach you some strategies for answering these types of questions.
Example 1: Which word does not belong with the others?
a) encourage
b) support
c) endorse
d) criticize
When approaching Word Classification questions, you want to follow two steps:
1. Define each word in the answer choices. Using the example above, let’s define each word in the answer choices. The definition does not have to be complicated. If you can’t think of a definition, at least try to determine if the tone of the word is positive or negative.
Which word does not belong with the others?
a) encourage – motivate or inspire
b) support – approve of
c) endorse – support or recommend
d) criticize – say bad things about
2. Use your definitions to think of a category that three of the words belong to. You might notice that answer choices A, B, and C all have positive tones and have a similar meaning, while answer choice D has a negative tone and has the opposite meaning. This means that answer choices A, B, C are all synonyms and mean “to support or approve of”, so the category could be synonyms meaning “to approve of.”
Based on this category, we can tell that answer choice D criticize does not belong, so answer choice D is correct.
Let’s work through one more example using the steps from above.
Example 2: Which word does not belong with the others?
a) computer
b) electronics
c) television
d) digital camera
1. Define each word in the answer choices. Using the example above, let’s define each word in the answer choices. The definition does not have to be complicated. If you can’t think of a definition, at least try to determine if the tone of the word is positive or negative.
Which word does not belong with the others?
a) computer – electronic device that stores data
b) electronics – broad group of devices that use electricity
c) television – electronic device for watching things
d) digital camera – electronic device for taking pictures
2. Use your definitions to think of a category that three of the words belong to. You might notice that answer choices A, C, and D are all specific electronic devices while answer choice B defines this broad category. This means that answer choices A, C, and D all fit into the category types of electronic devices.
Based on this category, we can tell that answer choice B electronics does not belong because it is not a specific type of electronic device, but rather the broad category that the other three answer choices fall under. So answer choice B is correct.
Typically, a majority of the word classification questions on the HSPT will fall into one of the two types from above:
Type 1: Three of the words are synonyms and the other word has a different meaning than the other three.
Type 2: One word is a broad category and the three other words fit under this category.
So there you have it! Just remember to follow these two steps when approaching word classification questions on the HSPT. If you want more practice with word classification questions, check out our comprehensive HSPT workbook which includes tons of word classification practice questions, along with more than 2500 practice questions covering all five sections of the HSPT, and three full-length practice tests.
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