Featured Word:
In Latin ‘allocate‘  meant to give to a place (location). Today the meaning is strongly related. When you allocate something you give it to a particular place or put it aside for a particular purpose.

Examples:

• Only $400,000 was allocated for staff training in this year’s budget.
• As we get older we need to allocate a greater portion of our money to debt reduction.

Collocations: When you learn new vocab, make sure that you note collocations too. For this group of words some collocations are:
abstract of, abstract painting, quite abstract
accurate representation, accurate account, extremely accurate
acknowledgement of, fully acknowledge, freely acknowledge, refuse to acknowledge
aggregate of
allocate to, allocate by, funds are allocated, randomly allocate

Note that different collocations can have quite different meanings. They are not always alternatives.

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. Some mathematical concepts are a bit ______________ for younger children. (abstract / abstraction)
2. Is that an _______________ representation of events? (accurately / accurate)
3. Was your argument _______________ ? (acknowledge / acknowledged)
4. Together they got an _______________ of 356. (aggregate / aggregated)
5. How many shares were _______________ to the company? (allocated / allocation)

Answers (in the wrong order below)
5. allocated   3. acknowledged    2. accurate  1. abstract     4. aggregate