[General] fearing

Hi.
I sometimes,, When answering to myy english tests, fear If words have other senses too which I may not know.And I wouldn't answer them lest I get a negative mark.What should I do with this fearing?

hooshdar3 said:

Hi.
I sometimes,, When answering to myy english tests, fear If words have other senses too which I may not know.And I wouldn't answer them lest I get a negative mark.What should I do with this fearing?

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Sometimes, when answering questions on [STRIKE]to [/STRIKE]my[STRIKE]y[/STRIKE] English tests, I fear [STRIKE]If [/STRIKE]words have other senses [STRIKE]too [/STRIKE]which I may not know.And I [STRIKE]wouldn't[/STRIKE] don't answer them lest I get a negative mark.What should I do with this feari[STRIKE]ng[/STRIKE]?

If you don't know the word, you don't know the word. Are you penalized for guessing? If not, then guess. Otherwise, just keep reading everything you can to increase your vocabulary.

Barb_D said:

Sometimes, when answering questions on [STRIKE]to [/STRIKE]my[STRIKE]y[/STRIKE] English tests, I fear [STRIKE]If [/STRIKE]words have other senses [STRIKE]too [/STRIKE]which I may not know.And I [STRIKE]wouldn't[/STRIKE] don't answer them lest I get a negative mark.What should I do with this feari[STRIKE]ng[/STRIKE]?

If you don't know the word, you don't know the word. Are you penalized for guessing? If not, then guess. Otherwise, just keep reading everything you can to increase your vocabulary.

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Well, I am both panalized for giving the wrong answer and NNot giving the right answer.

Question:
Do the sesnses of words vary widely in meaning and is there a way to deduct similar meaning of a word, knowing just one sense?

hooshdar3 said:

Well, I am [STRIKE]both[/STRIKE] p[STRIKE]a[/STRIKE]nalized for both giving the wrong answer and [STRIKE]NN[/STRIKE] not giving the right answer.

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We have asked you before - please make a little more effort to avoid basic slips. If you want us to spend time responding to your questions, you should take a little time checking them.

For a sound response to your original question, you need a therapist rather than a language teacher. We are not experts in dealing with fear.

hooshdar3 said:

Question:
Do the sesnses of words vary widely in meaning and is there a way to deduct similar meaning of a word, knowing just one sense?

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I can't see how this wouldn't be relevant to any human language. Is this what you are really trying to ask?

hooshdar3 said:

Well, I am both panalized for giving the wrong answer and NNot giving the right answer.

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There's a difference between not getting the point because you didn't answer correctly, and having a partial point subtracted because you gave the wrong answer.
If I have five questions and I guess completely at all of them, each with five answers, I may get a score of 1 in the first case if I get 1 right and 4 wrong. But if I'm penalized for guessing, I can end up with a score of 0 if I get 1 right and 4 wrong.

Question:
Do the sesnses of words vary widely in meaning and is there a way to deduct similar meaning of a word, knowing just one sense?

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Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Context, context, and more context. Also knowing root origins, from the Latin or Greek, can help, as well as understanding how prefixes work, may help.

Barb_D said:

There's a difference between not getting the point because you didn't answer correctly, and having a partial point subtracted because you gave the wrong answer.
If I have five questions and I guess completely at all of them, each with five answers, I may get a score of 1 in the first case if I get 1 right and 4 wrong. But if I'm penalized for guessing, I can end up with a score of 0 if I get 1 right and 4 wrong.

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Or you mau get a negative score if it counts as:+1-(4*1/3), i.e -1/3 points for each wrong answer.
Also, when thhere is a competition and someone else may give the right answer, you will get behind him.

I understand the point is to give the right answer. I understand that the person who correctly answers more questions than you and incorrectly answer fewer questions than you will do better. I was actually trying to help you with your test-taking strategy. Hence my question about penalizing wrong answers.

hooshdar3 said:

Or you mau get a negative score if it counts as:+1-(4*1/3), i.e -1/3 points for each wrong answer.

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This is a simple maximizing problem. You’re showing that you get 1 point for a correct answer, 0 points for no answer, and -1/3 points for a wrong answer. Assuming independent questions (i.e. you can't derive an answer from another question), you want to answer each question based on your confidence in your answer for it, using the following simultaneous linear inequalities: 1c - (1/3)w > 0 and c + w <= 1, where c is the percent confidence of a correct answer and w is the percent confidence of a wrong answer (and c >= 0 and w >= 0). As a rule, you should answer any question where you have confidence of correctness over 25%. Below this your ability to assess your wrongness will come in to play.

Here is a graph of these 4 simultaneous inequalities, with c is on the vertical axis. If you’re in the green, you answer. If you’re in the yellow, you leave it blank. Simple!

BobSmith said:

This is a simple maximizing problem. You’re showing that you get 1 point for a correct answer, 0 points for no answer, and -1/3 points for a wrong answer. Assuming independent questions (i.e. you can't derive an answer from another question), you want to answer each question based on your confidence in your answer for it, using the following simultaneous linear inequalities: 1c - (1/3)w > 0 and c + w <= 1, where c is the percent confidence of a correct answer and w is the percent confidence of a wrong answer (and c >= 0 and w >= 0). As a rule, you should answer any question where you have confidence of correctness over 25%. Below this your ability to assess your wrongness will come in to play.

Here is a graph of these 4 simultaneous inequalities, with c is on the vertical axis. If you’re in the green, you answer. If you’re in the yellow, you leave it blank. Simple!

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I cannot get the picture............

hooshdar3 said:

I cannot get the picture............

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That's strange. Neither can I now.

Oh - even stranger. If I come into the site via Internet Explorer, I can see the graph. If I come in via Firefox, I can't.

Weird. I'll see if Red5 can explain this.

Well, I did some finagling to get it to show up. There doesn’t seem to be an “insert picture from file” (only insert picture from URL) so I first attached it as a file, then linked a picture to the new UE URL, then removed the attachment. It worked in the preview (and indeed the original is still working for me, in IE), so I went with it I’ll include it on this reply as an attachment.

Checked from home, definitely broke in both FF and IE. I updated the original post with a link to the 2nd upload and it seems to be working. For now.

Ok.
Thank you all!