Originally Posted by Ainuddin Kibzai

The English Composition paper of CE-2012 has really dented the confidence of the aspirants to a huge extent. Most of the aspirants who scored quite heavily in other papers were merely able to score less than 20 and even 10 in the Composition paper.I was fortunate as well as tactical enough to accumulate 64 marks in the paper this paper. As per promised, I'm going to share my strategy for approaching each and every question one by one.The very first question of the paper comprising Synonyms, Antonyms and Blanks really decides the fate of the paper since they embody quite solid marks.I have seen different students adopting various strategies approaching this very portion. They have tried to cram the 500 GRE words which doesn't guarantee you sure success.You are to select the right option, not to write down its meanings or making sentences. Therefore, one must understand the difference between FLUKE and GUESS. The former is a mere strock of luck whereas the latter is a bit more educated in nature and treatment.You just have to guess the right answer which is no issue whatsoever provided that you are acquainted with ETYMOLOGY. Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.If you have just a little bit of know-and-how of Etymology then you can easily guess the MOST PROBABLY right answer instead of banking on mere FLUKE.You will be surprised to know that the real English words are merely 50 % while the remaining are composed with the addition of either a prefix ( the word that is written before the original word. e.g. un, in, im, etc.) and suffix ( the word that is written after the original word. e.g. less, ale, ily, etc.)
The main thing you need to learn is the root word which gives birth to numerous words.
For instance, the word "vid" generally refers to "view". If you know this thing then you can easily understand meanings of the words you have never heard or read before. e.g. video. vision, visual. evidence. and many more such words which will give you the sense of the word.
Here again I quote that I had never studied etymology at all but had good common sense of comparing different words and taking out the similarities.
Nothing is easy or difficult to study. All I know is easy to me and vice versa.
It also needs one's personal interest as well to develop the skill.
Developing the skill of etymology needs your keen observation along with little effort.
Another example for etymology is as follows.
The words such as spectacle, spectrum, prospect, aspect, spectacular, inspection, inspector, etc, have some thing in common and that is "spec". So one can easily develop the sense that all these words have more or less the similar meanings having a common word among them. All have some connection, one way or the other, with the meaning "VIEW".
Hence, one can easily guess the meanings of various bizarre words which one comes across during composition paper.I have also arranged a test that will sharpen your Guessing ability keeping in view the Etymology practice.
Regards,
Ainuddin Kibzai.