‘Assess’ has a very similar meaning to ‘test’ and to ‘evaluate.’ When you are studying you may be given assessments, tests or evaluations.

Examples of usage:
We have an assessment tomorrow, have you studied?
How will the examiners assess our essays? What criteria will they use?

Collocations: When you learn new vocab, make sure that you note collocations too. For this group of words some collocations are:
an analysis of, analyse by
approach by, a new approach
assessment by, assessment of
assumption that, assume that

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).

Complete the sentences below with the correct form of the word.

1.Is is very difficult to make an  _______________ of the evidence for and against climate change. (assess, approach )
2.People sometimes make the _______________ that housework is not valuable work. (assume analyse)
3. If we all take a section, we’ll be able to cover a large  _______________. (area, assume)
4.His position makes him a little intimidating, but in fact he is quite _______________. (approach, assess)
5.Recent _______________ of test results throughout the world reveals that Taiwanese children are well advanced in their mathematical skills. (assume, analyse)

ANSWERS (in the wrong order)
5. analysis   3. area   1. assessment   4. approachable   2. assumption