Enrich your vocabulary – A key tool for UMAT Section 2

UMAT section II is about “Understanding People”. As the title suggests, ACER has designed this section to test the comprehensive logical reasoning of a UMAT candidate, with respect to conversation understanding. The background passages provided in this section contain regular conversations but in context with some medical or health issues. Mental disorders and psychological problems are also included as passage-topics. Each passage is followed by multiple choice questions (MCQs) which ask about certain conditions or situations that could only be answered by correct logical understanding of the conversations, within the passage. Since the conversations are generally tricky enough, and often ornamented with enhanced vocabulary, therefore one needs to have a strong command over English language to score fairly in UMAT section II.

The importance of Strong English vocabulary in UMAT section II could be best understood if we consider an ideal passage for the section. For example,

Passage:

“We didn’t know what to do,” says O’Keefe. “I don’t think any of us had really held a baby before.” So the three stood beside the ditch, dumbfounded, three gangly teens taking turns holding the baby to their chests to keep her warm.

“This was before mobile phones,” says O’Keefe, “before, I think, even 911 emergency call centres had come to the area. We knew it was no use to keep walking up to Chris’s house, because his mum was working and no-one would be home. We figured we’d have a better chance just staying by the road and flagging down someone.” So they stood there and waited.

Questions:

1. By the conversation, as mentioned in the background passage, O’Keefe sounded –

Answer: O’Keefe was true to understand that they were helpless in tackling the situation with the newborn child. Yet, he was logical enough to reject the impractical solutions and move ahead with a more sensible approach, i.e. trying to stop a passerby for help. Hence, the correct word explaining him would be – Reasonable.

Now, this explanation may sound quite simple but, in reality, it is not so. The passage contains certain words which may look a bit strange for different individuals. A UMAT candidate should possess strong knowledge in English vocabulary to completely understand the real picture from the passage in order to get to the right answer.

Therefore, to enhance their English vocabulary, UMAT aspirants should practice reading good contents like newspapers, magazines, novels, consulting columns, etc to enrich their word bank. Always remember the simple proverb – “Practice makes a man perfect”.