W 7 Vocab Blog

In reading 1 we learned “karma” is the accumulated record of many lives. Let’s learn more about this word.

1.       What does “accumulate” mean based on the article?

2.       Find a synonym and antonym of “accumulate”.

3.       Compare  “accumulate” and “increase”:

The table below shows the nouns following “accumulate” and “increase”, respectively.

PS: W1=accumulate, W2=increase. You only have to look at the second to the fourth columns in each table. The number in each cell represents the frequencies that each noun follows “accumulate” and “increase”.

(3.1) Can you find the features of the nouns following these two words, respectively?

(3.2) What is the relationship of “accumulate” and “increase”? (e.g. Do they share the same meaning? Or what else can you find?)  

4.       Read the sentences below and choose the word, accumulate or increase, that best fits in the context.

(4.1) Dr. Day has found that under increased UV exposure, these plants produce smaller, thicker leaves and stock them with extra photosynthetic pigments and other chemicals. For every unit of surface area, says Day, " your construction costs are higher, " and these costs may __________ over time.

(4.2) The recipe of the soup is to add green beans and crushed red pepper and stir in crumbled bacon, black pepper, and salt. Snap (or string) beans may be substituted. __________cook time in all the steps to 5 minutes.
5. Make a sentence of "accumulate".

Hang's W6 vocab blog

Consume:

1) to use fuel, energy or time, especially in a large amounts.

2) The new machine consumes a lot of fuel.

3) synonym: apply, waste, squander,use up, spent.

 Antonym: desist, save.

4) Ex1: engross, propagate,

       Ex2:  get, recognize, realize, know.

Investor

1) a person who puts money into something in order to make a profit or get an advantage.

2) The new company is invested money by investor.

3) synonym:advance, bankroll, back.

      Antonym: divest, disinvest.

4) Ex1: form or creat someoneto change something

       Ex2: transmit, order.

Reinforce:

1) to make something stronger.

2) synonym: add to, increase, reward.

     Antonym: decrease.

3) reinforcement 

4) My mother reinforced the shirt with strong cloth.

W6 Vocab blog

Consume (v)

1.       What does “consume” mean in Reading 2?

2.       Make a sentence of “consume” as a verb.

3.       Find a synonym and an antonym of “consume”.

4.       Read the sentences below and guess what “be consumed with” mean.

Ex1: The missionary is so consumed with passion that he travels to the remote areas to advocate the love from God.

Ex2: Parents should be fair to their children, or the one who gets less attention may be consumed with jealousy.

Investor (n)

1.       What does “investor” mean in Reading 2?

2.       “Invest” is the verb form of “investor”. Make a sentence of “invest” as a verb.

3.       Find a synonym and an antonym of “invest”.

4.       Read the sentences below and guess what “invest sb with sth” mean.

Ex1: The chairperson invested the CEO with all the powers to remake the corporate culture.

Ex2: A family partnership invests the heir of the current chairperson the power to take over the company after the current chairperson steps down.

Reinforce (v)

1.       What does “reinforce” mean in Reading 2?

2.       Find a synonym and an antonym of “reinforce”.

3.       What is the noun form of “reinforce”?

4.       Make a sentence by using “reinforce” or the noun form of “reinforce”.

W4 Vocab blog

Primitive

Let’s take a look at the five top nouns that follows “primitive” (=primitive + N.) in American English, namely  “art”, “life”, “people”, “sculpture”, and “man”. I screenshot the examples from an online corpus. Read the examples and make a guess about the meaning of “primitive”. Think about whether “primitive” has a positive, negative, or neutral meaning in the examples (Click the example pictures to see th enlarged images).

(1)    Primitive art

(2)    Primitive life

(3)    Primitive people

(4)    Primitive sculpture

(5)    Primitive man

(6)    What does “primitive” mean in the five phrases mentioned above.

(7)    Does “primitive” in the following five cases have a positive, negative, or neutral meaning?

Primitive + N.	Positive	Neutral	Negative
Primitive art
Primitive life
Primitive people
Primitive sculpture
Primitive man

Primarily

(1)    What does “primarily” mean in the article. You may want to refer to the article to decide what it means.

(2)    Find a synonym of “primarily”.

(3)    “Primary” is the adjective of “primarily”. One of its meanings is “happening first”. Compare “primary” and “primitive”. Do you think the two adjectives have the same meaning in this sense? Why?

W3 Vocabulary in Ch2

Feature (n)

1.     What does “feature” mean in the article?

2.     “Feature” can be a verb. What does it mean?

3.     Make a sentence of “feature” as a verb.

4.     Find a synonym and an antonym of “feature” as a verb.

Perspective

1.     What is the part of speech of “perspective”?

2.     What does “perspective” mean in the article?

3.     Find a synonym of “perspective”.

4.     Make a sentence of “perspective”.

5.     Read the following text from Journal of Environmental Health and think what “put…in perspective” means.

People tend to view factors that are beyond their control, such as pesticides on their food, as more menacing than known risks that they can control, such as smoking. In addition, most people find it difficult to place environmental risks in perspective, especially when the risk is relatively low. Clear communication and education are vital to help the public recognize the hazards, put them in perspective, and learn what can be done to reduce the risk to health.

Unique

1, What does “unique” mean in the article?

2. Make a sentence of “unique”.

3. Find a synonym and an antonym of “unique”.

4. What is the noun form of “unique”?

If you have questions about what websites to use and the requirements for leaving comments, please go to W1 course blog to read the relevant information for references. 

Try to leave comments on those whose blogs haven't been left comments yet. We hope each student's blog  will be visited by her classmates. 

See you next week: )

W1: Introduction

Hi there,
Welcome to 431R Academic Reading course blog. This is a place where you can explore and acquire vocabulary knowledge by yourself with the help of the enormous resources online. Everyone should create a vocabulary blog by tonight and post your blog link on our course blog, so that other students can add you to their friend lists. The purpose of allowing your peers to visit your blog is to help you and your peers refine the definitions of words through blog discussions in order to learn the word meanings better. To give you a better idea of how to write the blog, go to http://smallbusinessmanagement2011.blogspot.com/ 


Today's assignment:
1. Create your own vocab blog and post the blog link on the course blog.
2. Add this course blog and other students to your friend list. 
3. Practice writing W1 blog.


W1 blog
We are going to learn three words this week: ensure, overlapping, and survey. When writing the word meaning, remember to put the phonetic transcription and part of speech.A tip of writing the definitions is to summarize the definitions found online in your own words.


Ensure

1.      What does “ensure” in the text mean?

2.      Write one synonym of “ensure”.

3.      Make a sentence of “ensure”.

4.      The meaning of “ensure” sometimes is similar to “insure”. However, “insure” has another meaning which “ensure” does not have. What is the different meaning?

Overlapping
1. What does the "overlap" in the text mean?
2. Write one synonym and antonym of "overlap". (Make a sentence of each word, if need be.)
3. Make a sentence of overlapping (or "overlap").


Survey
1. What does "survey" in the text mean?
2. What does "survey" in the following sentences mean:
The survey is about the best restaurants in Honolulu. 
John surveyed the attitudes of the college students toward the library service. 


For your references:
1. Cambridge dictionary online:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
2. Thesaurus.com
http://thesaurus.com/


If you find out any other good websites for learning words or searching for the word meanings and want to share, please email me. If the websites are considered to be appropriate to the students' levels, I will post the link on our course blog. 


Peer response
After you finish writing your vocab blog, go to  two other students' vocab blogs to comment on the following aspects:
1. Do the definitions given by the students fit into the context in which the words occur?
2. Are the definitions or sentences made by the students clear for you?
3. Do they provide any synonyms and/or antonyms that help me understand the meaning of the word? 
4.How about the grammar?
5. Is there any thing you want to mention?


If you find the information provided by your classmates is useful to you, add the useful information to your blog. Respond to those who leave comments on your blog. In other words, each student should have at least four entries in the activity of leaving comments and responding comments. Entries less than four times will affect your final grade.


Good luck & see you tomorrow :)


Kelly