Enhance Your Language Awareness

Words in Action

▆ Working with Words and Expressions

1. In the boxes below are some of the words you have learned in this unit. Complete the following sentences with them. Change the form where necessary.

▆ Answers:

1) reveals

2) behaving

3) handle

4) influenced

5) satisfied

6) entertaining

7) inherit

8) affect

9) confronted

10) resistance

11) isolated

12) restrict

13) optimistic

14) selfish

15) sensitive

2. In the boxes below are some of the expressions you have learned in this unit. Do you understand their meanings? Do you know how to use them in the proper context? Now check for yourself by doing the blank-filling exercise. Change the form where necessary.

▆ Answers:

1) summed up

2) have an impact on

3) respond

4) expand your horizons

5) falls into

6) at work

7) shut myself off

8) in control of

9) free from

10) in good shape

3. The underlined words in the short text below are incorrectly used. Read the text carefully and replace each of them with a word given in the box. The first correct answer is already given.

▆ Answers:

1) high-achiever

2) combination

3) seek

4) specific

5) restrict

6) vary

7) expand

8) growth

9) company

10) dominate

11) opportunity

▆ Increasing Your Word Power

1. Select from among the adjectives in the box and produce as many appropriate collocations as you can with the target nouns in the following sentences. Some of the adjectives may be used more than once.

▆ Answers:

1) aggressive / sarcastic / harsh / negative

2) magical / mystical

3) negative/ critical

4) magical / outgoing / optimistic

5) intellectual

2. Complete the following sentences by choosing a most suitable adverb from among those given in the box.

▆ Answers:

1) Evidently

2) individually

3) absolutely

4) consistently /evidently / absolutely

5) Consequently

6) mentally / physically and physically / mentally

7) probably / absolutely

8) eagerly, enthusiastically

9) easily

10) Normally

3. Did you notice the suffixes -ity/ty, -ic/ical in words such as loyalty, reality, optimistic, mythical in this unit? The suffixes -ity/ty can be added to many adjectives to form nouns, and -ic/ical can be put after many nouns to form adjectives. Change the words given in brackets into nouns or adjectives, and then fill them into the blanks.

▆ Answers:

1) personality, sensitivity, loyalty

2) complexity

3) Mutuality

4) stupidity

5) regularity

6) readability, grammatical

7) romantic, realistic

8) biological, psychological

9) historical, economic, political

10) systematic, logical

GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT

Task 1: Walk around the classroom and conduct a brief survey about your classmates according to the questionnaire. After you have collected enough information, give a short report to the class by making comparisons. For example, you may talk to three classmates to find out what time they came to the classroom this morning and then make a comparison by saying: A arrived earlier than B, but B arrived earlier than C. And A arrived the earliest this morning.

▆ Answers for reference:

1) So-and-so arrived earliest today. Encourage students to give some more details such as: He always comes          to the classroom early or this is the first time he has come to the classroom so early. He is usually late for class, but today he came to class the earliest. The family were at table when the telephone rang. There is a Jack Robinson waiting to see you in the hall. We are striving for a world with no poverty, no hurt and no hatred. The Olympic Games for 2016 will be held in Rio de Janeiro.

2) So-and-so wears the most colourful dress today. Encourage students to give some more details such as: She usually wears bright-coloured clothes as she believes she feels happier in a colourful dress.

3) So-and-so is the most humorous person in our class. Encourage students to give some more details such as: He often tells us jokes and makes us laugh. He can even make fun out of a bad situation.

4) So-and-so is the most active in our class. Encourage students to give some more details such as: He participates in all kinds of activities and he is always eager to talk and answer questions in class.

5) Most of us found that such and such is the most difficult course. Encourage students to give some more details such as: It has a lot of new terms and the concepts are all new to us. Besides, we need to do a lot of critical thinking and write long essay assignments.

6) So-and-so got the highest score for the last exam. Encourage students to give more details such as: He got 95 when most of us only got about 70 or 80 marks.

7) So-and-so learns the fastest. Encourage students to give more details such as: He uses a lot of good learning strategies and is able to acquire new knowledge more quickly than the others.

8) The students all agree that so-and-so is the best lecturer. Encourage students to give some more details such as: He presents his lessons clearly and he is very caring towards his students.

Task 2: Talk in pairs about the following themes by way of making comparisons, using as many adjectives / adverbs as you can think of in their comparative and superlative degrees.

▆ Answers for reference:

1) It is much colder in winter in Beijing than in Shanghai. It is colder in winter in Shanghai than in Guangzhou. Of all the three cities, Beijing is the coldest city in winter.

2) Among the three sports, I like football the best. Surfing also sounds interesting, but it takes a lot more training to be able to do it than the other two sports.

3) I know Lu Xun better than the other writers. Lu Xun is one of the most famous writers in China and he is a modern writer. Shakespeare is famous, but I think his plays are the most difficult to read.

4) I think Gone with the Wind is very interesting, but it is the longest movie among the three. The Sound of Music is the lightest among the three and I like it much more than I do The Pianist.

5) Peking University and Tsinghua University are the two most famous universities in China. They are also among the best universities in the world. As far as I know, Peking University is better known for its arts courses and Tsinghua is better known for its science courses.

Cloze

Complete the following passage with words chosen from this unit. The initial letter of each is given.

▆ Answers:

1) indicate

2) responds

3) represent / reflect

4) absolutely

5) preference

6) harsh

7) specific

8) traits

9) individual

10) immature

11) effort

12) persistent

13) achieve

14) inherits

Translation

Translate the following sentences into English, using the words and expressions given in brackets.

▆ Answers for reference:

1) William likes the girl a lot so he tries very hard to impress her and is optimistic that he will win her heart.

2) He is very creative and has a good vision of the future, but he likes to keep things to himself.

3) They came from a poor village where people were shut off from modern civilization.

4) We must work hard and make an effort to achieve the goals that we have set.

5) We should learn to be content with all that we have and should not be too critical about things around us.

6) They often represent our school in debating competitions; tonight we will throw a party to celebrate their success.

7) Through reading, not only has he expanded his horizon, he has also learned to keep improving his character.

8) Two policemen sacrificed their lives in order to save that girl from the fire.

9) A stable relationship without conflicts between husband and wife benefits the children in the family.

10) Don’t complain about your fate and make the best of your life.