Grammar Question.

[Santino]

To prioritise something means to make it your priority, of which you can only have one. (Pri- from the same root as primary, prime etc, meaning first.) I suspect that there's been a slippage in the exact meaning of priority from the most urgent thing/the thing to be done first, to a general sense of being the most important, whether or not it's done first.

 

[teuchter]

If you prioritize something, you are making it a high priority (not deciding on its level of priority).

If you rank something, you could be ranking it anywhere on a scale, low or high.

In the example given, arguably you could just say "Employees should be given the opportunity to prioritise family" and the context would make clear that it's work that they are being prioritised over.

Just saying "Employees should be given the opportunity to rank family" would not have the same meaning at all.

In the example, "over family" is added to the end of the sentence. That's fine because it's normal to say "prioritise over". I think one of the reasons it doesn't sound right when using the word "rank" is that you'd say "rank above" rather than "rank over".

 

[dessiato]

It's from a book published by Oxford, called New English File Advanced Plus.

What does the teachers' book say? Assuming you have one, not all academies seem to bother getting them in my experience.

 

[Dandred]

What does the teachers' book say? Assuming you have one, not all academies seem to bother getting them in my experience.

It's from the workbook and there isn't a key.

I'm pretty confident now as to why prioritize is the correct answer now.

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm pretty confident now as to why prioritize is the correct answer. now

Superfluous.