Barron's 1100 Words You Need to Know » Week 15 - Day 5

Police who have resorted to wire-tapping have been able to get evidence that was useful in gaining convictions. In a sense, everyone who listens to you is wire-tapping your conversation. Are the “detectives” impressed with the extent of your vocabulary? By the end of this week you will have gained a greater familiarity with 300 words and 60 idioms— enough to educate a conscientious wire-tapper.

Match the twenty words with their meanings. *Reminder: Record answers on a sheet of paper.
(Numbers 1 and 13 are close in meaning.)

Review Words

DEFINITIONS

  1. a. descriptive name
  2. b. coming from outside, foreign
  3. c. supposed, reported
  4. d. deserving blame
  5. e. destruction, disposal of
  6. f. an associate in crime
  7. g. model of excellence
  8. h. bitterness of temper
  9. i. persist
  10. j. repeal by law
  11. k. prevent
  12. l. speak loudly
  13. m. partnership in wrongdoing
  14. n. to deprive of legal force, cancel
  15. o. renounce previous statements
  16. p. to hamper, to chain
  17. q. admittance
  18. r. wandering
  19. s. historic
  20. t. debatable
  21. u. a means of spreading information
  22. v. absentmindedness
  23. w. to conceal defects
  24. x. make a start

REVIEW WORDS

  1. abrogate __________
  2. access __________
  3. accomplice __________
  4. alleged __________
  5. asperity __________
  6. complicity __________
  7. controversial __________
  8. culpable __________
  9. declaim __________
  10. epithet __________
  11. extrinsic __________
  12. fetter (v.) __________
  13. invalidate __________
  14. landmark (adj.) __________
  15. liquidation __________
  16. nomadic __________
  17. paragon __________
  18. persevere __________
  19. preclude __________
  20. recant __________

Idioms

IDIOMS

  1. woolgathering __________
  2. to whitewash __________
  3. break the ice __________
  4. the grapevine __________

Make a record of those words you missed.

WORDSEARCH 15

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. 2nd Day
  2. 1st Day
  3. 4th Day
  4. 1st Day
  5. 4th Day

Questionable Advertisements

The Nostalgia Factory, a Boston art gallery, staged an exhibit of advertisements that had outraged various segments of the community. For example, one of the fast food chains ran a TV commercial that showed unattractive school cafeteria workers in hairnets, making that experience less tasty than a visit to Roy Rogers. Another ad that drew criticism from psychiatrists and groups such as the Alliance for the Mentally Ill suggested to readers that, if they had paid $100 for a dress shirt, they were fit candidates for a straitjacket. Similar sensitivity had restricted ad writers from using terms such as “nuts” or “crazy.”

Why such protests and where do they come from? Who is asking companies to (1)__________ contracts with those agencies that are (2)__________ in creating racist types of commercial messages? Parents who took exception to the Burger King spot that announced, “Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules,” said no to it because it gave the wrong message to their children. And when a potato chip maker’s ad featured a “bandito,” angry Mexican-Americans used some choice (3)__________ in denouncing such a stereotype.

The conclusion to be reached is that segments of the population have become increasingly vocal about “insensitive” ads, demanding that corporations (4)__________ and never again commission advertisements that are clearly (5)__________ , provocative, and harmful to good human relationships.

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