Chapter 11. Your Life - Part III. Relationships

Interactive Vocabulary - Amy E. Olsen 2017

Chapter 11. Your Life
Part III. Relationships

What Do You Want?

What are you passionate about? What is important to you? To make any goal happen, you need to plan.

✵ Step One: Define what you want. Look at var­ious areas of your life—social, financial, ca­reer, health, education—to help you generate ideas about what you want to achieve. This preliminary step gets you thinking about what is important to you. Maybe you want to run a marathon or lose weight to improve your health. Maybe you would like to have $1,000 in the bank as a financial goal. Make sure your goals are manageable. Is it possible for you to save $90 a month, so you can have $1,000 in the bank after a year? If you can cut expenses or work extra hours, then your goal is realistic. Being realistic doesn't mean you can't aim high. Follow your dreams when you make your goals, but have a reasonable time frame. A person can't usually graduate from college in a year, and it's nearly impossible to lose thirty pounds in two weeks. You can, however, do both if you give yourself enough time.

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✵ Step Two: Write down your goal. Writing your goal makes it more tangible, and you are more likely to make it happen. When you write your goal, make it specific so your subconscious can visualize it. If your social goal is to take a trip to Hawaii with your friends, write what you want to do: surf, learn the hula, relax on the beach. Picture yourself lounging on your beach towel with the sun warming your face as you listen to the waves hit the beach. When you can see your goal with such clarity, you are likely to work harder to make it happen.

✵ Step Three: Set deadlines for various stages of your goal. So many activities vie for our attention each day; only by establishing deadlines are we likely to meet our goals. If you have considered being a writer as a career goal, set a deadline to have two thousand words written by every Sunday. By creating this deadline, your manuscript will become a reality. If you want to save the $1,000, plan to put $45 in the bank on the 15 th and 30th of every month.

✵ Step Four: Review your goals daily to make sure you are on track, to reinforce the mental image of accomplishing the goal, and to decide whether the goal is still important. Writing down one's goals does not preclude changing them later. Sometimes our values, wants, or needs change, and a goal is no longer important. Changing one's goals is not a sign of failure. If you injure your knee, running a marathon is no longer a realistic goal. In order not to jeopardize your body in the long term, consider walking a half-marathon as a new goal that will still satisfy your health needs.

✵ Step Five: Match your actions to your goals. When you do something, ask yourself, "Is this going to further my goal?" If it is, go ahead. If not, stop and rethink your decision. Will buying a shirt that you don't need move you closer to your $1,000 goal? Will skipping a study session help you graduate? If you do slip, don't be discouraged. Taking a backward step is a predicament that most people face as they reach for their goals. Simply return to your plan and continue to think positively about your goal.

Predicting

For each set, write the definition on the line next to the word to which it belongs. If you are unsure, return to the reading on page 74, and underline any context clues you find. After you've made your predictions, check your answers against the Word List on page 79. Place a checkmark in the box next to each word whose definition you missed. These are the words you'll want to study closely.

Set One

possible to accomplish

to create

having strong emotions

introductory

clearness

□ 1. passionate (line 1) ...

□ 2. generate (line 4) ...

□ 3. preliminary (line 6) ...

□ 4. tangible (line 18) ...

□ 5. clarity (line 23) ...

Set Two

to prevent

to compete for something

a difficult situation

a document

to risk

□ 6. vie (line 24) ...

□ 7. manuscript (line 27) ...

□ 8. preclude (line 31) ...

□ 9. jeopardize (line 33) ...

□ 10. predicament (line 38) ...

Self-Tests

1 In each group, circle the word that does not have a connection to the other three words.

1. brightness   clearness  darkness  clarity

2. risk    protect   jeopardize  threaten

3. allow    prevent   preclude  stop

4. excited   passionate  calm   loving

5. introductory  beginning  preliminary  final

6. surrender   compete  vie    struggle

7. generate   complete  create   develop

8. text    document  photo   manuscript

9. comfort   predicament problem  mess

10. tangible   real   elusive   actual

2 Complete the sentences using the words below. Use each word once.

Vocabulary list

vie  clarity   preclude  jeopardized tangible

generate manuscript passionate preliminary predicament

1. The ... of her writing made it easy to understand her argument.

2. Dorian ... his chances of getting into the college he wanted because he forgot to mail his application on time.

3. A ... student will be eager to study.

4. A mascot's job is to ... excitement in the crowd.

5. The author's ... was turned down two hundred times before it was published.

6. The ... plans for the house didn't look a thing like the completed project.

7. There is a debate as to whether owning ... objects or having experiences makes a person happier.

8. My ... is how to get to class now that my car won't start.

9. We have an excellent turnout this year. Ten students will ... for student council president.

10. My cold will not ... my going to the concert. I'll take medicine and be fine.

3 Match the vocabulary word to the situation it best fits. Use the underlined context clues to help you make the connections. Context clues may be synonyms, antonyms, general meaning, or examples.

Set One

1. At our introductory meeting, the voice instructor said I showed great promise.

2. I skipped football practice because I didn't want to risk hurting my knee before my big trip to New Orleans this weekend.

3. Grant and Emma could reach out and touch the flag at the top of the mountain; they had finally reached their goal.

4. Yoshito spent the weekend writinghis_life_story.

5. The singer's voice was so clear that I understood every word of her song.

a. jeopardize

b. manuscript

c. tangible

d. clarity

e. preliminary

Set Two

6. Pam stuck her head between the fence rails and couldn't remove it.

7. The storm prevented us from getting to the New Year's party.

8. The math major was enthusiastic about solving equations.

She happily stayed up all night doing them.

9. Before starting his project, Paul talked to several people to get_ideas.

10. I compete with my sister over everything from having a boyfriend to getting good grades.

f. preclude

g. generate

h. vie

i. passionate

j. predicament

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Identify the two vocabulary words represented in the photos.

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4 Answer the questions about the quotations. Look for context clues to help you. Use each word once.

Vocabulary list

clarity  generate manuscript vying  passionate

predicament tangible jeopardize preliminary preclude

1. "I have papers to sort, phone calls to return, and e-mail to check." What were these things doing for the person's attention?

2. "Lana doesn't want to hurt her chances of winning the bake-off, so she has gone to the store to buy all fresh ingredients." What does Lana not want to do?

3. "Roberto is enthusiastic about cooking spicy food; he loves to make hot dishes." How does Roberto feel about cooking?

4. "The audience nodded in agreement as Melissa finished her speech." What can be assumed about the way Melissa presented her information?

5. "Critics say that Rosenquist's first book is 'a gem."' What did Rosenquist have to send the publisher before his book could be printed?

6. "On today's field trip, three students took a wrong turn on the tour and ended up getting locked in the mansion." What did those students get themselves into?

7. "I can't go to the movies because my cousins have come to visit." What is the visit doing?

8. "Seeing the movie set in Kenya has created an interest in me to travel there." What did the film do to the person?

9. "The walls are up. The new kitchen looks like it will be a reality soon." What is the kitchen becoming?

10. "The early findings indicate that there is nothing dangerous about the drug, but more studies are needed." What kind of findings are these?

Interactive Exercise

Finish the sentence starters. The first five contain one of the vocabulary words in the starter. Complete these sentences so that the use of the vocabulary word makes sense. For the second five use each of the following vocabulary words once in your completed sentences: clarity, generate, jeopardize, tangible, vie.

1. A financial predicament I want to avoid is ...

2. As a preliminary step to taking better care of my health, ...

3. Because I am passionate about my education, ...

4. If I were to write a manuscript about my future career, it could be called ...

5. Going to school shouldn't preclude my having a social life, so I ...

6. Currently, my biggest goal is ...

7. A goal I have achieved in the last year ...

8. A barrier to achieving one of my goals ...

9. In ten years, I see myself ...

10. What I want out of life ...

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Context Clue Mini-Lesson 3

This lesson uses the general meaning of a sentence or passage to help you understand the meaning of the underlined word. In the paragraph below, circle any words that give you clues to the meaning. Write your definitions of the underlined words in the blanks that follow the paragraph.

After a spate of robberies in town last month, some members of the City Council became quite vocal about the need for more police. Two members especially began to pontificate about their concerns for public safety at every function they attended. My cousin was sure both of them would be running for mayor soon, and his conclusion seemed credible given how much time they were appearing in public. I might vote for one of the men, but the other one was absolutely odious, and I would never vote for him.

Your Definition

1. Spate ...

2. Pontificate ...

3. Credible ...

4. Odious ...

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Words to Watch

Which words would you like to practice with a bit more? Pick 3-5 words to study, and list them below. Write the word and its definition, and compose your own sentence using the word correctly. This extra practice could be the final touch to learning a word.

Word

Definition

Your Sentence

1.



2.



3.



4.



5.