Barron's 1100 Words You Need to Know » Week 11 - Day 5

Many teachers have jested about their students who confused rabies with rabbis, Jewish clergymen. We know that those who get the message of this book, true vocabulary mastery, will make few such errors.

Match the twenty words with their meanings. *Reminder: Record answers on a sheet of paper.

Review Words

DEFINITIONS

  1. a. to flood, to swamp
  2. b. home
  3. c. painful to the feelings, moving
  4. d. useless
  5. e. reckless
  6. f. confirm
  7. g. calm, sluggish
  8. h. sensational
  9. i. hopeful
  10. j. do away with
  11. k. confused, mixed up
  12. l. guess
  13. m. to pass by
  14. n. careless
  15. o. occasional
  16. p. thorough
  17. q. careful
  18. r. to force
  19. s. enthusiastic
  20. t. to joke
  21. u. to lead a wild life
  22. v. unexpected financial gain
  23. w. unreliable acquaintances
  24. x. provide for oneself at the expense of others

REVIEW WORDS

  1. coerce __________
  2. comprehensive __________
  3. conjecture __________
  4. corroborate __________
  5. domicile __________
  6. elapse __________
  7. fruitless __________
  8. garbled __________
  9. inundate __________
  10. lax __________
  11. lurid __________
  12. meticulous __________
  13. obviate __________
  14. phlegmatic __________
  15. poignant __________
  16. quip __________
  17. rash __________
  18. sanguine __________
  19. sporadic __________
  20. zealous __________

Idioms

IDIOMS

  1. to feather one’s nest __________
  2. fair-weather friends __________
  3. to sow wild oats __________
  4. windfall __________

Make a record of those words you missed. If you were able to get them all right, think of antonyms for numbers 7, 8, 10, 17, and 19.

WORDSEARCH 11

Using the clues listed below, record separately using one of the new words you learned this week for each blank in the following story.

Clues
  1. 1st Day
  2. 3rd Day
  3. 1st Day
  4. 2nd Day
  5. 1st Day

Assuming Blunders

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for Richard Sands.”

“Deliver us from evil. Lead us not into Penn Station.”

Teachers who train students to memorize and then do rote recitations sometimes find that the youngsters have a (1)__________ interpretation of the actual words. Eliza Berman, an educator who is (2)__________ about her own use of language, invited colleagues to send her examples of confusion in students’ writings. Little did she realize that they would quickly (3)__________ her letterbox with their pet mistakes. As a result, Ms. Berman was able to compile a fairly (4)__________ list of howlers that include the following:

“The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called Mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot.”

“Homer wrote The Oddity in which Penelope was the first hardship Ulysses endured on his journey.”

“Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.”

“King Alfred conquered the Dames.”

“Indian squabs carried porpoises on their backs.”

“Under the Constitution, the people enjoy the right to keep bare arms.”

“In the Olympic Games, the Greeks ran, jumped, hurled the bisquits and threw the java.”

“Lincoln was America’s greatest Precedent.”

Ms. Berman is not too (5)__________ about eliminating such errors from pupils’ compositions and test papers. Her advice: enjoy!

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