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Question

Difficulty: MediumDiphthongs

Match each target word in the left column with the word in the right column that contains the identical diphthong sound.

  • gaugefeign
  • sleightheight
  • broochfoe
  • heirscarce

Answer

'gauge' matches 'feign' (/eɪ/), 'sleight' matches 'height' (/aɪ/), 'brooch' matches 'foe' (/əʊ/), and 'heir' matches 'scarce' (/eə/).
Each pair is matched strictly by its shared diphthong sound despite irregular spellings: 'gauge' and 'feign' share /eɪ/, 'sleight' and 'height' share /aɪ/, 'brooch' and 'foe' share /əʊ/, and 'heir' and 'scarce' share /eə/.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Determine the phonetic transcription and primary diphthong sound for each left-column word.
'gauge' is pronounced /ɡeɪdʒ/ (/eɪ/), 'sleight' is pronounced /slaɪt/ (/aɪ/), 'brooch' is pronounced /brəʊtʃ/ (/əʊ/), and 'heir' is pronounced /eə/ (/eə/).
Spelling patterns in English are often misleading; establishing standard IPA transcriptions reveals the underlying diphthong.
2
Determine the primary diphthong sound for each right-column word.
'feign' has /eɪ/, 'height' has /aɪ/, 'foe' has /əʊ/, and 'scarce' has /eə/.
Identifying the corresponding sounds in the target options enables direct pair matching.
3
Pair each word from the left column with its matching counterpart on the right based on identical diphthongs.
gauge - feign (/eɪ/), sleight - height (/aɪ/), brooch - foe (/əʊ/), heir - scarce (/eə/).
Matching identical phonetic sounds fulfills the examination criteria.

Key Concept

Identifying identical diphthong sounds across deceptive orthographic spellings
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Topics

Diphthongs

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