VIP Class Notes (Nick)

Next Class Focus

Continue TOEFL practice. In particular, focus on production of clear spoken and written English for the test, including clearer or specialized vocabulary.

Homework

Practice writing essays and send them to the email service and/or bring them to the next class.
Bring TOEFL speaking topics to practice expressing yourself quickly and clearly.

TOEFL Practice:

  1. Area vocabulary
  2. Confusing sentence structure, phrases

Vocabulary

Astronomy – the study of stars, planets, other things in space
Comets/Asteroids – rocks or ice flying through space (smaller than planets)
Shooting Star – when a comet or asteroid enters the atmosphere and burns up, making a tail
Black Hole – when a very large star collapses
Gravity – attraction between objects

Fuse/Confuse – the joke here is that it is sometimes unclear whether the filmmaker is combining styles in a way that effective; maybe no one knows what he means
Fuse – to make two things into one, usually by melting them; when you combine two dissimilar things into one
e.g. Painleve was famous for fusing different styles in his movies.

Fiction – any story that you make up, with people or events that never existed, or not as in the story
Non-fiction – history, science, autobiography, philosophy

Aquatic – relating to water

Mollusk – aquatic animals, with soft bodies, often having shells
e.g. octopus, clams, mussels

Uncanny – strange and hard to explain; mysterious

Seahorse – an aquatic creature that looks kind of like a horse
— The important thing is that the male seahorse carries the eggs.

Incorporate – to use, to include

Catch on – to become popular

What to make of them – how to understand something, what it means; we don’t know how to feel about it
e.g. We went to see the museum of modern art, but we really weren’t sure what to make of the paintings there (we didn’t understand what they meant, or what they wanted to show)

Panel – a thin, flat, and somewhat large piece, often of wood, usually standing on end

Paint / Painting – paint is what you use, and painting is what you make

Counterfeit – a formal fake; a fake which tries very hard to look like the real one

High-end – of high quality, very expensive; luxury

Satirize – to use someone’s way of speaking or acting, and to show how it is or becomes ridiculous

Grammar

Aquatic animal shooting – shooting films of aquatic animals

Successor from – Successor of

Pronunciation

Athlete – ath – leet (noun for athletic)

Luxury – lux – shur – ee / lug – zhur -ee

Sport – “p” is unvoiced; “b” is voiced