root words and contractions

[Susan Baker]

Good morning,
For the attached test question, it is addressed by Formats guideline 17.3.2, but I just want to be sure. The guideline states that for word lists activities, including writing the base word, that these should be uncontracted. So does that include the word "friendliness" in the question AND the answer choice words 1-4?
Thank you in advance.
Susan

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[joannavenneri]

I can see why there might be some uncertainty here. The short answer is YES, [u]friend[/u], [u]friendliness[/u] and ALL THE ANSWER CHOICES should be UNCONTRACTED. It is necessary to have each letter separately accessible in the word in question "friend," but it is also necessary to make sure all the answer choices are NEUTRAL and treated in the identical manner, so that there's no unintentional clue as to which answer choice might be the right one. And in this case, there are two versions of "friend" as answer choices. By having ALL the choices uncontracted, the reader has to make a choice based on what is actually there, not what the transcriber shows.

--Joanna

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