Dictionary definitions

Read dictionary definitions for academic words and review parts of speech to practise and improve your reading skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation

Reading text

attend

(v)

to officially go to a place, like a school, university or class
You must attend 80 per cent of classes to pass the course.

dormitory plural dormitories

(n)

1. a place where many people sleep
2. US: a big building at a university where students live (UK: hall of residence)
I know John. He lives in my dorm at university.

faculty plural faculties

(n)

all the teachers who work at a university
Norman Brown was in the English faculty for twenty years.

teaching assistant

(n)

a person who works to help a university teacher in a classroom
The teaching assistant has the exams for you at the end of class.

tuition fee

(n)

an amount of money that you pay to go to university
Tuition fees are very high this year.

undergraduate

(n)

a student at a college or university who is studying for a first degree
They met when they were undergraduates at Cambridge University.

Task 1

TrueOrFalse_MjMxOTQ=.xml

Task 2

GapFillDragAndDrop_MjMxOTU=.xml

Discussion

How often do you use a dictionary?

Download

Worksheet81.71 KB

Try another reading

Language level

A1 Elementary

Do you need to improve your English reading skills?

Join thousands of learners from around the world who are improving their English reading skills with our online courses.

Find out more

I use a dictionary every day. I think it's OK because English is my second language

I use the dictionary when I see an unknown word more than three times.

I use a dictionary for every word I don't know. However, dictionary using decreases in course of time.

A lot

Hi, i use dictionary every time that i meet a new word and i don't know its meaning. When i was child i used it a lot, instead now i use dictionary only few times.

I'm use a dictionary every day practice

I usually use dictionary. When I was child, I always Vietnamese - English dictionnary. But now I grown up and I find out a secret that is using English-english dictionary will be better than for studying English.

I used to refer to dictionary during my childhood when there were no resources such as internet or the online apps. Whenever I need to know the meaning, I either use online dictionary or the dictionary app on my phone. It's usage depends on the requirement. Sometimes, it is like 20 words a day and the other times, it is like a single word in 20 days.