TỪ VỰNG TOEIC unit 7

Unit VIS SPECT VOC PHON CUR PERI SENS SOPH Words from Mythology and History Quiz 7-1 Quiz 7-2 Quiz 7-3 Quiz 7-4 Quiz 7-5 Review Quizzes VIS comes from a Latin verb meaning “see.” Vision is what enables us to see, visual images are visible to our eyes, and a visitor is someone who comes to see something The same verb actually gives us another root, vid-, as in Julius Caesar's famous statement about his military exploits, “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”), and such common English words as video vista (1) A distant view (2) An extensive mental view, as over a stretch of time • The economic vista for the next two years looks excellent, according to a poll of business economists Vista is generally used today for broad sweeping views of the kind you might see from a mountaintop But the word originally meant an avenue-like view, narrowed by a line of trees on either side And vista has also long been used (like view and outlook) to mean a mental scan of the future—as if you were riding down a long grand avenue and what you could see a mile or so ahead of you was where you'd be in the very near future vis-à-vis In relation to or compared with • Many financial reporters worry about the loss of U.S economic strength vis-à-vis our principal trading partners Vis-à-vis comes from Latin by way of French, where it means literally “faceto-face.” In English it was first used to mean a little horse-drawn carriage in which two people sat opposite each other From there it acquired various other meanings, such as “dancing partner.” Today it no longer refers to actual physical faces and bodies, but its modern meaning comes from the fact that things that are face-to-face can easily be compared or contrasted So, for example, a greyhound is very tall vis-à-vis a Scottie, and the Red Sox have often fared badly vis-à-vis the Yankees visionary (1) A person with foresight and imagination (2) A dreamer whose ideas are often impractical • His followers regarded him as an inspired visionary; his opponents saw him as either a man or a lunatic A visionary is someone with a strong vision of the future Since such visions aren't always accurate, a visionary's ideas may either work brilliantly or fail miserably Even so, visionary is usually a positive word Martin Luther King, Jr., for instance, was a visionary in his hopes and ideas for a just society The word is also an adjective; thus, for example, we may speak of a visionary project, a visionary leader, a visionary painter, or a visionary company envisage To have a mental picture of; visualize • A mere three weeks after they had started dating, the two were already arguing, and none of us could envisage the relationship lasting for long One of the imagination's most valuable uses is its ability to see something in the “mind's eye”—that is, to visualize, envision, or envisage something Envisaging a possibility may be one of the chief abilities that separate human beings from the other animals What we envisage may be physical (such as a completed piece of furniture) or nonphysical (such as finishing college) Envisaging life with a puppy might lead us down to the pound to buy one, and envisaging the sinking of an island nation may focus our minds on climate change SPECT comes from the Latin verb specere, meaning “to look at,” and produces several familiar English words Spectacles can be glasses that you look through; but a spectacle can also be a remarkable sight—in Roman times, perhaps a spectacular chariot race or a spectacularly bloody battle between gladiators and wild beasts, mounted for the pleasure of its spectators aspect (1) A part of something (2) A certain way in which something appears or may be regarded • Many experts believe the mental aspect of distance racing is more important than the physical aspect Since aspectus in Latin means “looked at,” an aspect of something is basically the direction from which it's looked at So we may say that travel is your favorite aspect of your job, or that eating well is one aspect of a healthy life If you look at a stage set from the front, it looks completely different than from behind, where all the mechanisms are visible, and both aspects are important The word can be very useful when you're analyzing something, and it's used a great deal in the writings of scholars prospect (1) The possibility that something will happen in the future (2) An opportunity for something to happen • There was little prospect of a breakthrough in the negotiations before the elections Since the Latin prefix pro- often means “forward” (see PRO), prospect refers to looking forward The prospect of a recession may lead investors to pull their money out of the stock market Graduates of a good law school usually have excellent prospects for finding employment Prospective students roam campuses with their parents in the year before they plan to enter college perspective (1) Point of view; the angle, direction, or standpoint from which a person looks at something (2) The art or technique of painting or drawing a scene so that objects in it seem to have depth and distance • From the perspective of the lowly soldier, the war looked very different To the modern mind, it's hard to believe that perspective had to be “discovered,” but before the 1400s paintings simply lacked accurate perspective Instead, important people and objects were simply shown larger than less important ones; and although distant objects were sometimes shown smaller than near ones, this wasn't done in a regular and accurate way Just as odd, many paintings didn't represent the other meaning of perspective either —that is, a scene might not be shown as if it were being seen from one single place Today, perspective is used much like standpoint Just as standpoint once used to mean simply the physical place where you stand but today also means the way you “see” things as a result of who you are and what you do, the same could be said about perspective prospectus A printed statement that describes something (such as a new business or a stock offering) and is sent out to people who may be interested in buying or investing • The prospectus for the mutual fund says nothing about how its profit forecasts were calculated Like prospect, prospectus looks forward Thus, a prospectus originally outlined something that didn't yet exist, describing what it would become This might even be a book; the great dictionary of Noah Webster, like that of Samuel Johnson, was first announced in the form of a prospectus, so that well-to-do people might actually subscribe to it—that is, pay for it in advance so that Webster would have money to live on while writing it Soon, prospectus was being used to mean a description of a private school or college, intended to attract new students Today the word very often means a description of a stock offering or mutual fund, whether new or not theosophy A set of teachings about God and the world based on mystical insight, especially teachings founded on a blend of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs • He had experimented with a number of faiths, starting with Buddhism and ending with a mixture of Eastern and Western thought that could best be called theosophy The word theosophy, combining roots meaning “God” and “wisdom,” appeared back in the 17th century, but the well-known religious movement by that name, under the leadership of the Russian Helena Blavatsky, appeared only around 1875 Blavatsky's theosophy combined elements of Plato's philosophy with Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu thought (including reincarnation), in a way that she claimed had been divinely revealed to her The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 to promote her beliefs, still exists, as does the Anthroposophical Society, founded by her follower Rudolf Steiner Quiz 7-4 A Indicate whether the following pairs of words have the same or different meanings: sophisticated / worldly-wise same _ / different _ sensuous / sensitive same _ / different _ theosophy / mythology same _ / different _ extrasensory / extreme same _ / different _ sophistry / wisdom same _ / different _ desensitize / deaden same _ / different _ sophomoric / wise same _ / different _ sensor / scale same _ / different _ Answers B Match the word on the left to the correct definition on the right: theosophy a immaturely overconfident extrasensory b detector sensuous c doctrine of God and the world sophomoric d pleasing to the senses sophistry e false reasoning desensitize f not using the senses sophisticated g make numb sensor h highly complex Answers Words from Mythology and History Achilles' heel A vulnerable point • By now his rival for the Senate seat had discovered his Achilles' heel, the court records of the terrible divorce he had gone through ten years earlier When the hero Achilles was an infant, his sea-nymph mother dipped him into the river Styx to make him immortal But since she held him by one heel, this spot did not touch the water and so remained mortal and vulnerable, and it was here that Achilles was eventually mortally wounded Today, the tendon that stretches up the calf from the heel is called the Achilles tendon But the term Achilles' heel isn't used in medicine; instead, it's only used with the general meaning “weak point”—for instance, to refer to a section of a country's borders that aren't militarily protected, or to a Jeopardy contestant's ignorance in the Sports category arcadia A region or setting of rural pleasure and peacefulness • The Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania are a vacationer's arcadia Arcadia, a beautiful rural area in Greece, became the favorite setting for poems about ideal innocence unaffected by the passions of the larger world, beginning with the works of the Roman poet Virgil There, shepherds play their pipes and sigh with longing for flirtatious nymphs; shepherdesses sing to their flocks; and goat-footed nature gods play in the fields and woods Today, city dwellers who hope to retire to a country house often indulge in arcadian fantasies about what rural life will be like Cassandra A person who predicts misfortune or disaster • They used to call him a Cassandra because he often expected the worst, but his predictions tended to come true Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, was one of those beautiful young maidens with whom Apollo fell in love He gave her the gift of prophecy in return for the promise of her sexual favors, but at the last minute she refused him Though he could not take back his gift, he angrily pronounced that no one would ever believe her predictions; so when she prophesied the fall of her city to the Greeks and the death of its heroes, she was laughed at by the Trojans A modern-day Cassandra goes around predicting gloom and doom—and may turn out to be right some of the time cyclopean Huge or massive • They're imagining a new medical center on a cyclopean scale—a vast tenblock campus with thirty high-rise buildings The Cyclopes of Greek mythology were huge, crude giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead Odysseus and his men had a terrible encounter with a Cyclops, and escaped utter disaster only by stabbing a burning stick into the monster's eye The great stone walls at such ancient sites as Troy and Mycenae are called cyclopean because the stones are so massive and the construction (which uses no cement) is so expert that it was assumed that only a superhuman race such as the Cyclopes could have achieved such a feat draconian Extremely severe or cruel • The severe punishments carried out in Saudi Arabia, including flogging for drunkenness, hand amputation for robbery, and beheading for drug trafficking, strike most of the world as draconian Draconian comes from the name of Draco, a leader of Athens in the 7th century B.C who in 621 B.C produced its first legal code The punishments he prescribed were extraordinarily harsh; almost anyone who couldn't pay his debts became a slave, and even minor crimes were punishable by death So severe were these penalties that it was said that the code was written in blood In the next century, the wise leader Solon would revise all of Draco's code, retaining the death penalty only for the crime of murder myrmidon orders unquestioningly A loyal follower, especially one who executes • To an American, these soldiers were like myrmidons, all too eager to the Beloved Leader's bidding In the Trojan War, the troops of the great hero Achilles were called Myrmidons As bloodthirsty as wolves, they were the fiercest fighters in all Greece They were said to have come from the island of Aegina, where, after the island's entire population had been killed by a plague, it was said to have been repopulated by Zeus, by turning all the ants in a great anthill into men Because of their insect origin, the Myrmidons were blindly loyal to Achilles, so loyal that they would die without resisting if ordered to The Trojans would not be the last fighting force to believe that a terrifying opposing army was made up of men who were not quite human nemesis usually victorious A powerful, frightening opponent or rival who is • During the 1970s and '80s, Japanese carmakers became the nemesis of the U.S auto industry The Greek goddess Nemesis doled out rewards for noble acts and vengeance for evil ones, but it's only her vengeance that anyone remembers According to the Greeks, Nemesis did not always punish an offender right away, but might wait as much as five generations to avenge a crime Regardless, her cause was always just and her eventual victory was sure But today a nemesis doesn't always dispense justice; a powerful drug lord may be the nemesis of a Mexican police chief, for instance, just as Ernst Stavro Blofeld was James Bond's nemesis in three of Ian Fleming's novels Trojan horse to weaken or defeat Someone or something that works from within • Researchers are working on a kind of Trojan horse that will be welcomed into the diseased cells and then destroy them from within After besieging the walls of Troy for ten years, the Greeks built a huge, hollow wooden horse, secretly filled it with armed warriors, and presented it to the Trojans as a gift for the goddess Athena, and the Trojans took the horse inside the city's walls That night, the armed Greeks swarmed out and captured and burned the city A Trojan horse is thus anything that looks innocent but, once accepted, has power to harm or destroy—for example, a computer program that seems helpful but ends up corrupting or demolishing the computer's software Quiz 7-5 Fill in each blank with the correct letter: a myrmidon b draconian c cyclopean d Trojan horse e Achilles' heel f nemesis g Cassandra h arcadia He's nothing but a _ of the CEO, one of those creepy aides who's always following him down the hall wearing aviator sunglasses A “balloon mortgage,” in which the low rates for the first couple of years suddenly explode into something completely unaffordable, should be feared as a _ They marveled at the massive ancient _ walls, which truly seemed to have been built by giants On weekends they would flee to their little _ in rural New Hampshire, leaving behind the trials of the working week In eighth grade his _ was a disagreeable girl named Rita who liked playing horrible little tricks His gloomy economic forecasts earned him a reputation as a _ Historians point to the _ treaty terms of World War I as a major cause of World War II Believing the flattery of others and enjoying the trappings of power have often been the _ of successful politicians Answers Review Quizzes A Choose the correct synonym and the correct antonym: peripheral a central b logical c sincere d secondary curative a humane b unhealthful c sensible d healing irrevocable a final b undoable c unbelievable d vocal perimeter a essence b edge c center d spurt nemesis a ally b no one c enemy d bacteria sophomoric a silly b wise c cacophonous d collegiate Achilles' heel a paradise b heroism c strong point d vulnerability peripatetic a stay-at-home b exact c wandering d imprecise vociferous a speechless b steely c sweet-sounding d loud 10 visionary a idealist b cinematographer c conservative d writer 11 sophisticated a rejected b advanced c worldly-wise d innocent 12 equivocate a equalize b dither c decide d enjoy Answers B Choose the closest definition: phonetic a called b twitched c sounded d remembered sophistry a deception b musical composition c sound reasoning d pleasure procure a appoint b obtain c decide d lose vista a summit b outlook c mountain d avenue cacophony a fraud b argument c racket d panic vis-à-vis a compared to b allowed to c rented to d talked to perspective a judgment b self-examination c standpoint d landscape peripheral a auxiliary b central c relating to the sun d philosophical draconian a clever b massive c disastrous d severe 10 polyphonic a multi-melodic b uniformly harmonic c relatively boring d musically varied 11 cyclopean a whirling b gigantic c rapid d circular 12 envisage a surround b imagine c investigate d envy 13 periodontal a relating to feet b around the sun c around the teeth d around a corner 14 curator a caretaker b watcher c doctor d purchaser 15 Cassandra a optimist b economist c pessimist d oculist Answers C Fill in each blank with the correct letter: a equivocate b sensuous c cacophony d extrasensory e nemesis f Trojan horse g arcadia h theosophy i sinecure j desensitize The job turned out to be a _, and no one cared if he played golf twice a week The huge Senate bill was a _, filled with items that almost none of the senators were aware of We opened the door onto a haze of cigarette smoke and a _ of music and laughter In an old book on _ she found a philosophy very similar to the one she and her boyfriend were exploring She was sure her old _ was plotting to get her fired After a month of barefoot running, he had managed to thoroughly _ the soles of his feet The letter described their new Virginia farm as a kind of _ of unspoiled nature Whenever they asked for a definite date, he would _ and try to change the subject She lay in the bath with her eyes closed in a kind of _ daydream 10 Husband and wife seemed to communicate by _ means, each always guessing what the other needed before anything was said Answers ... “wisdom,” appeared back in the 17th century, but the well-known religious movement by that name, under the leadership of the Russian Helena Blavatsky, appeared only around 1 875 Blavatsky's theosophy... Theosophical Society, founded in 1 875 to promote her beliefs, still exists, as does the Anthroposophical Society, founded by her follower Rudolf Steiner Quiz 7- 4 A Indicate whether the following... together in a web that may become very dense; a famous piece by Thomas Tallis, composed around 1 570 , has 40 separate voice parts Polyphony reached its height during the 16th century with Italian