In its noun form ‘portion’ means a part or section of something. In its verb form it means to divide something into sections. As a verb it is most commonly used in terms of serving food. You can portion out a baked dish.
It can also take the prefix ‘pro’ to make the word proportion. This means one section compared to the whole. A small proportion of students prefer to wear uniforms.
When you learn new vocab, make sure that you note collocations too. For this group of words some collocations are:
mutually beneficial, mutually acceptable
normed for
overlap with, overlap of
passive towards, passive behavior
portion of, portion out
Check the meanings of the words if you don’t already know them. Check the meanings of the various forms as sometimes they are different. You can check them at Time4english by clicking the words (http://www.time4english.com/aamain/lounge/awl.asp).
Vocabulary for IELTS – Academic Word List 104
Complete the sentences. Choose the correct word and then use the correct form of the word.
- ______________ cigarette smoke is believed to cause cancer. (passive, mutual)
- Every semester they have to ______________ out the workload amongst the staff. (norm, portion)
- This schedule won’t work as these two flights are _______________. (overlap, passive)
- Arriving at 9am is the _______________, but some people regularly arrive at work 10 or 20 minutes later. (overlap, norm)
- The agreement the companies reached is ______________ beneficial. (mutual, portion)
Answers (in the wrong order)
5. mutually 3. overlapping 2. portion 1. Passive 4. norm
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