In the following options lettered A to D, all the words except one have the same stress pattern.Choose the option with the different stress pattern.

Analyze the question: Three of the words share one stress pattern, and one word differs. We need to find the odd one out.

Concept: In English, two-syllable words are stressed either on the first syllable (e.g. TAble) or on the second (e.g. beGIN). Many nouns and adjectives take first-syllable stress, while many verbs with prefixes like e-, be-, re- take second-syllable stress.

Solution: Mark the stress on each word.

• A. gobble → GOB-ble (stress on the 1st syllable)
• B. failure → FAIL-ure (stress on the 1st syllable)
• C. goodness → GOOD-ness (stress on the 1st syllable)
• D. elope → e-LOPE (stress on the 2nd syllable)

Words A, B and C all have stress on the first syllable. Only elope is stressed on the second syllable, because the first syllable e- is a weak, unstressed prefix and the long vowel /əʊ/ in -lope carries the stress.

Answer: D. elope

Tip: Words ending in -ness, -ure, and -le usually take stress on the first syllable (GOODness, FAILure, GOBble). In two-syllable words, check for a weak prefix such as e-, be-, a-, re-, or de-. These usually push the stress to the second syllable, so such a word is often the odd one out.