It is easy to mix up similar-sounding words in English. For example:

• adept at vs. adapt to

If you are adept at something, you are good at it.  If you’ve adapted to something, you’ve become used to it.

Ready to practice?

Complete the sentences with the word pairs, filling in the correct blank.  The first pair of sentences have been done for you.

• Today the leaders of the talks announced that Hamas would not accept the peace treaty.
• I’ve enjoyed every single one of Harrison Ford’s movies, except for ‘The Fugitive’.

• I urged Amanda to tell her father about how the car got damaged, but she wouldn’t take my _______.
• The FDA ________ that you eat an average of five servings of fruit or vegetables every day.

• The wedding planner ________ that every aspect of the wedding went smoothly.
•   The concierge _______ us that there were plenty of nice restaurants within walking distance of the hotel.

• The news report ________ that the company’s CEO is to blame.
• Every year thousands of students ________ to universities in the United States.

• Once the fallen tree has been removed from the train tracks, we can ______ on to Prague.
• The novel is _______ by a few pages of maps, family trees and history notes.

• Josh was much shorter _______ his brother.
• You need to clean the kitchen, ______ do the laundry.

• The _______ of the second book in the series is called ‘The Two Towers’.
•   Lately _________ have had nothing but bad news about unrest in eastern Ukraine.

• I was really ______ embarrassed about it.
  • Could you please be ________? I’m trying to study.

• It’s not very __________ to spend so much money on a gadget that you don’t really need.
• Carla’s skin is so  ________ that she can’t wear most kinds of lotion or perfume.

• The laboratory _________ tested how quickly mice could learn certain patterns.
• The two months I spent in Kenya working with young children was an amazing, life-changing __________.

If you find that you’re having trouble with any of these matches, take a moment to look up the definitions of each word.