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

Onomatopoeic words

Onomatopoeic words are words that seem to sound like their meaning. The most obvious examples are verbs relating to the noises that animals make, e.g., cows moo and cats meow.

Certain combination or letters have particular sound associations in English.

• cl- (suggest something sharp and/or metallic)
  
  • click [make a short, sharp sound]
  • clang [make a loud ringing noise]
  • clash [make a loud, broken, confused sound]
  • clink [make the sound of small bits of metal/glass knocking together]

• gr- (suggest something unpleasant or miserable)
  
  • groan [to make a deep sound forced out by pain or despair]
  • grumble [to complain in a bad-tempered way]
  • grumpy [bad tempered or moody]
  • grunt [to make a low, rough sound like pigs do]
  • growl [to make a deep, threatening sound]

• sp- (have an association with water or other liquids or powders)
• splash [cause a liquid to fly up in the air in drops]
• spit [send liquid out from the mouth]
• splutter [make a series of spitting sounds]
• spray [send liquid thorough the air in a mist]
• sprinkle [scatter small drops]
• spurt [come out in a sudden burst]
• wh- (suggests the movement of air)
  
  • whistle [a high-pitched noise made through a small opening]
  • whirr [sound like a bird’s wings moving rapidly]
  • whiz [make the sound of something rushing through air]
  • wheeze [breathe noisily, especially with a whistling sound in the chest]
  • whip [long piece of rope or leather; or to hit with one of these]

• -ash (suggest something fast and violent)
• smash [break violently into small pieces]
• dash [move or be moved quickly or violently]
• crash [suddenly strike violently and noisily]
• mash [make soft or pulpy by beating or crushing]
• gash [a long, deep cut or wound]

• -ckle, -ggle, -zzle (suggest something light and repeated)
• trickle [flow slowly in a thin stream or in drops]
• crackle [make a series of short, sharp sounds]
• tinkle [make a series of light ringing sounds]
• giggle [laugh lightly]
• wriggle [move with quick, short twisting]
• sizzle [make a hissing sound like something cooking in fat]
• drizzle [small, fine rain]

Learning Vocabulary - general advice

What does knowing a new word mean?
It is not enough just to know the meaning of a word. You also need to know:

1. which words it is usually associated with
2. its grammatical characteristics
3. how it is pronounced

Try to learn new words in phrases, not in isolation.

• Write down adjectives and nouns that are often associated, e.g., classical music, flying saucer, common sense.
• Write down verbs and nouns that form expressions, e.g., to express an opinion; to take sides.
• Write down nouns in appropriate phrases, e.g., in touch with; a sense of humor.
• Write down words with their prepositions, e.g., at a loss for words; thanks to you.
• Note special grammatical characteristics of new words. For example, note irregular verbs, e.g., take, took, taken; uncountable nouns, e.g., luggage; or nouns that are used only in the plural, e.g., clothes.
  
• Note any special pronunciation problems of new words.