Common adjectives: importance and usefulness
Choose precise adjectives for effect, possibility, ease of use, usefulness, and unusual experiences.
These adjectives express five kinds of judgment. Important and unimportant tell how much effect something has on people's lives. Possible and impossible tell whether something can happen. User-friendly means easy to use. Useful and useless tell whether something helps you do or get what you want. Strange describes something unusual and surprising. Read the whole context because the same object can be useful without being user-friendly, or user-friendly without being useful for a particular goal.
Key terms
| Judgment | Words | Contrast |
|---|---|---|
| Effect | important / unimportant | big effect / no big effect |
| Chance | possible / impossible | can happen / cannot happen |
| Help | useful / useless | helps / does not help |
| Ease | user-friendly | easy to use |
| Surprise | strange | unusual and surprising |
- 1Notice: Clear buttons judge ease of use.
- 2Match: Easy to use matches user-friendly.
- 3Check: Do not choose useful unless the context says the thing helps achieve a goal.
A tool can be easy to use but fail to help with a particular goal.
In comparison questions, preserve every stated meaning.
Rules
- 1Use important for a big effect and unimportant for no big effect.
- 2Use possible when something can happen and impossible when it cannot happen.
- 3Use user-friendly for something that is easy to use.
- 4Use useful when something helps and useless when it does not help.
- 5Use strange for something unusual and surprising.
- 6Match the adjective to the exact clue; ease of use and helpfulness are different judgments.
Practice
2 easy · 2 medium · 2 hard
Up to 10 random questions per test