Review: Lesson 1 & 2

Tense	agitated	restive	stiff	taut
Anxiety	apprehension	concern	disquiet	solicitude
Pump	inflate	fill	inject	push
Conclusion	deduction	inference	supposition	finale
Optimistic	sanguine	roseate	positive	hopeful
Practice	exercise	rehearsal	pursue	do
Venom	toxin	spite	malice	malevolent
Debris	detritus	trash	friction	wreckage
Prey	quarry	raven	victim	hunt
Puncture	perforation	hole	penetrate	pierce
Numb	dead	insensitive	indifferent	dull
Resistant	immune	proof	impervious	insusceptible
Affable	cordial	friendly	easy-going	amiable
Amenable	tractable	acquiescent	responsive	receptive
Amiable	genial	amicable	good-natured	affable
Apt	suitable	appropriate	inclined	intelligent
Semi-	semiconscious	semipermeable	semimonthly	semitrailer
Demi-	demigod	demitasse	demi-island	demi-evil
Hemi-	hemicycle	hemisphere

Idiom: Gives Me the Creeps

When something gives you the creeps, it causes you to feel scared or uncomfortable.

Example: A big spider gives me the creeps.

creeps Informal A sensation of fear or repugnance, as if things were crawling on one's skin.

Note: "He gives me the creeps!", "He gives me the willies" (older saying, apparently dying), or "He creeps me out" are more casual forms. "He makes my skin crawl" is a fairly formal way to say the same.

Lesson 2: Wildlife - The Black Widow Spider

VENOM, n

(Their venom is 15 times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom.)

Meanings:

· 1. the poison produced by some snakes, scorpions etc, transmitted by biting or stinging (e.g. the venom of a cobra)

· 2. great ill-feeling, anger etc; feeling a need to see others suffer (e.g. he spoke with venom; the venom of jealousy)

Synonyms:

· 1. poison, toxin, virus

· 2. malice, maliciousness, spite, spitefulness, malignity, acrimony, bitterness, acerbity, spleen, hate, rancor

• Antonyms: benevolent, good-will

Related: venomous, adj.

DEBRIS, n plural debris

(The black widow spider spins her web in woodpiles and under rocks, porches, plants, or debris.)

Meanings:

· the remains of something broken, destroyed etc (e.g. the fireman found a corpse among the debris; storm debris; war debris;

· rubbish (e.g. there was a lot of debris in the house after the builder had left)

Synonyms:

· detritus, litter, trash, wreckage

Antonyms:

· cleanliness, neatness, purity

Notes: debris is the remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up; garbage is food that is discarded or useless rubbish or a receptacle where rubbish is discarded; trash is worthless material that is to be disposed or a worthless or contemptible person

PREY, n

(Like most spiders, the black widow preys on insects.)

Meaning:

· v. (used without object) to hunt, catch, or eat as prey, as an animal does (usually follow by on or upon) (e.g. Foxes prey on rabbits; Owls prey on mice.)

· n. 1. an animal caught, killed, and eaten by another animal as food 2. one that is defenseless, especially in the face of attack; a victim (e.g. his gullibility makes him easy prey)

Synonyms:

· n. quarry, target, victim

· v. raven, predate

Antonyms:

· hunter, predator

Related: [pray; play]

Analogy: [predator : prey] = [owl : mice]

PUNCTURE, n, vb.

(When an insect gets trapped in her web, the spider makes a small puncture in the insect’s body.)

Meanings:

· n. a small hole or wound made by a sharp object (e.g. My car has had two punctures this week.)

· vb. to sustain a small hole or wound in something such as a tire or the skin, or cause such a hole (e.g. Some glass on the road punctured my new tire.)

Synonyms:

· n. break, rupture, perforation

· vb. break, perforate, penetrate, pierce

• Antonyms: inflate, sew

Related: [acupuncture]

NUMB, adj., vb.

(Other symptoms include a numb feeling, sweating, dry mouth, and swollen eyelids.)

Meaning:

· n. 1. not able to feel or move (e.g. My arm has gone numb; She was numb with cold.) 2. being emotionally unresponsive; indifferent (e.g. She was numb to their pleas for mercy.)

· v. to make numb (e.g. The cold numbed her fingers.)

Synonyms:

· adj. 1. asleep, dead, insensible, insensitive, unfeeling 2. dull, insensible, insensitive, torpid, unresponsive, wooden, deadened, indifferent, senseless, paralyzed, stupefied

• Antonyms: responsive, sensitive

· vb. deaden, desensitize, dull, benumb

• Antonyms: sensitize, enliven

Related: numbness, n

RESISTANT adj., n [rĭ-zĭs'tənt]

(Black widow spiders are resistant to most insect sprays.)

Meaning:

· adj. resisting (e.g. his breed of cattle is resistant to disease; heat-resistant table-mats)

· n. a person or thing that resists

Synonyms:

· adj. immune, impervious, imperviable, insusceptible, unsusceptible, proof, resistive,

· n. opposition, renitence

Related: resistance, n; resist, vb.

Idiom: Making a mountain out of a molehill

Meaning:

• to exaggerate a minor problem; to cause something simple to seem much more difficult or important

Example:

1. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. You wrote one bad essay – it doesn’t mean you’re going to fail your degree.
2. When the house was untidy, Sara felt stressed. But her husband told her she was “making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Making a Molehill Out of a Mountain”

Meaning:

• Cause something difficult to be much easier

Example:

• By dividing up a big assignment and working on it a little bit every day, you can make a molehill out of a mountain.

Lesson 1 - Health: Understanding Stress

Meaning of Stress	(psychology) a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense
Stress Symptoms	Headaches, constipation, diarrhea, sore muscles, tense and anxious feelings, insomnia, fatigue, fearful and inferior feeling, loss of interest, heart racing, grinding of teeth, chest pain, etc.
Causes of Stress	general causes (threat, fear, uncertainty, …), life causes (death, health, money, …), stress at work
Vocabulary words	Tense; Anxiety; pump; conclusion; optimistic; practice

TENSE, adj., v. [Latin root: ten- = to stretch]

(This hormone causes our muscles to tense, our heart rate to increase, and our blood pressure to rise.)

Meaning:

· Adj., in or of a state of physical or nervous tension; taut or rigid; stretched tight

o e.g., a tense meeting; feeling tense; tense muscle; tense piano strings

· V., become tense or tenser

o e.g., he tensed up when he saw his opponent enter the room; N. Korean Missiles Tense Up Neighborhood; I could feel myself tense up as he touched my neck.

Synonym:

· Adj.: agitated, uneasy, edgy, fidgety, jittery, jumpy, nervous, restive, restless, skittish, twitchy, (informal) uptight, stiff, taut, tight

o Antonym: at ease, relaxed, lax

· V.: stiffen, tauten, tighten

Idiom:

· A bundle of nerves (informal. An extremely nervous person)

· All wound up (brought to a state of great tension)

· On edge (highly tense or nervous; irritable)

ANXIETY, n

(Others suffer from anxiety, headaches, or backaches.)

Meaning:

· A state of uneasiness and apprehension, as about future uncertainties.

o e.g., the mother had spent the whole of that winter in a state of terrible anxiety and agitation; their anxiety was relieved by the assurance that no danger could approach without a warning.

Synonym:

· angst, anxiousness, care, concern, disquiet, disquietude, distress, nervousness, solicitude, unease, uneasiness, worry

Derivatives: anxious, n

PUMP, n, v

(They pump more adrenaline into our bodies when we don’t need it.)

Meaning:

· v. to force a liquid or gas to flow

· n. 1. an act or the process of pumping 2. a low-cut shoe without fastenings

· e.g., pump air/blood/water; water/gas/bicycle/gas pump;

Synonym:

· drive, impel, propel, thrust, push, force, inflate, deflate, send, inject, fill, expand

CONCLUSION, n [suffix: -ion = act of, quality, condition]

(If you jump to the conclusion that she is angry with you, you will feel more stress.)

Meaning:

· The close or last part; the end or finish; decision based on facts

· e.g., his conclusion took the evidence into account; the conclusion of a business deal.

Synonym:

· deduction, assumption, inference, supposition, decision, end, close, finish, termination, wrap-up, windup, finale, ending, closing

Derivatives: conclude, v

OPTIMISTIC, adj [suffix: -ic = pertaining to, resembling, of the nature of]

(Learn to replace negative thoughts with optimistic ones.)

Meaning:

· expecting the best

· e.g., in an optimistic mood; optimistic plans; took an optimistic view

Synonym:

· hopeful, positive, rose-colored, roseate, rosy, sanguine, (informal) upbeat

o Antonym: pessimistic

Derivatives: optimist, n; optimism, n

Idiom:

· looking on the bright side

· looking through rose-colored glasses

PRACTICE, n, v

(It won’t happen overnight, but with practice, you may be able to change the way you respond to stress.)

Meaning:

· v. to do/perform repeatedly so as to master

· n. systematic exercise for proficiency

· e.g., practice will make you a good musician; a theory that is difficult to put into practice; practice law

Synonym:

· exercise, rehearsal; pursue

Derivatives: practiced, adj.; practical, adj.; practicum, n

Productive vocabularies

Including, Making Up
(to express the relationship between a whole and its parts or between a set and its members)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Consist of	Involve	Constitute	Comprehensive
Comprise of	Encompass	Make up	All told
Be composed of	Include	Form	Mainstream
	Contain

Excluding, Not Being Part of
(to show exactly how something stands outside a group or a whole)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Anomalous	Keep out	Filter	Rogue
Exception	Exclude	Screen	Outcast
Egregious	Ban		Alien
Marginal

Equivalence, Similarity
(to describe kinds of sameness, but you want to go beyond basic terms such as like, same, and similar)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5
Equality	Parallel	Alike	Just as	Counterpart
Parity	Echo	Identical	Likewise	Clone
		Equivalent		image

Difference, Inequality
(to describe the ways in which things are NOT the same, but you want to go beyond using different, difference, or comparative adjective phrases with less or not as)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5	Group 6
Disparity	Differ	Differentiate	Discrete	Heterogeneous	Contrast
Inequality	Diverge	Distinguish	Disparate	Diverse	Discrepancy
					Gap

Change, Increases, Decreases
(to say exactly how something has changed – very much or not very much, in a good or bad way, etc)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Alter	Transform	Raise	Reduce
Modify	Redesign	Rise	Diminish
Transition	Restructure	Accelerate	Contract
		Expand	decline

Links, Correlations, Happening Together
(two or more things are found together – but one doesn’t necessarily cause the other)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5
Link	Accompany	Characteristic of	In conjunction with	Imply
Correlation	Go along with	Associated with	To the degree that	Infer

Causes and Effects
(to go beyond connectives (e.g., as a result, because of) in writing about the causes of things)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5
Stem from	Lead to	Render	Favor	Be responsible for
Be due to	Yield	Make	Promote	Provoke
Derive from	Generate			Be blamed for

Permitting, Making Easier
(You want to write about specific situations in which a process is made possible or made easier or faster.)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3
Permit	Permissive	Consent
Allow	Lenient	Approval
Group 4	Group 5	Group 6
Exempt	Facilitate	Clear the way for
Excuse	Ease	Remove obstacles to

Stopping, Preventing
(to describe how certain factors make something impossible or difficult)

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5
Halt	Restrict	Forbid	Prevent	Hinder
Cease	Restrain	Deny	Forestall	Block
Suspend				deter

Suffixes

Noun-Forming Suffixes

-age (process, state, rank) e.g., lineage
-ance (the condition of, act of) e.g., dominance
-ation (action, state of) e.g., demonstration
-dom (state, rank, condition) e.g., serfdom
-hood (state, rank, condision) e.g., parenthood
-ism (act, manner, doctrine) e.g., barbarism
-ist (doer, believer) e.g., monopolist
-ment (means, result, action) e.g., bedevilment
-ness (quality, state) e.g., pretentiousness
-tude (quality, state, result) e.g., fortitude

Adjective-Forming Suffixes

-able (able to) e.g., sociable
-en (made of) e.g., ashen
-ful (having qualities of) e.g., purposeful
-ish (suggesting) e.g., fiendish
-less (lacking) e.g., graceless
-like (like, similar) e.g., lifelike
-some (apt to, showing) e.g., loathsome
-ward (in the direction of) e.g., windward

Verb-Forming Suffixes

-ate (become, form, treat) e.g., designate
-en (cause to be) e.g., enlighten
-esce (become, continue) e.g., coalesce
-fy (make, cause to have) e.g., amplify
-ize (make, cause to be) e.g., dramatize