F2F Class Notes April 3rd (Ben)

Vocabulary

a hypocrite = someone who says one thing but thinks or does another one 表里不一

He says he’s always ready to help people in need but he has always refused to lend me any money. What a hypocrite.

manipulate = to try to influence people for your personal agenda without them knowing

This girl always cries to get what she wants. She is a professional manipulator.

empathy = 同情 the ability to share other people’s feelings

If someone next to me is sad, I’l feel sad too, even if I don’t know them. I am a very empathetic person. I have a lot of empathy for other people.

take advantage of something = use an opportunity to do something (can be good or bad)

I took advantage of the nice weather to wash my car.

I took advantage of my walk in the park to buy some ice-cream.

Some people just manipulate you to take advantage of you.

When my boss told me he didn’t have enough money to pay me for one month’s work, I really felt taken advantage of.

to preach to the choir = try to persuade people to hold beliefs they already have

• You should come to Smart English, it’s a great school, and you can take as many classes as you want.
• Don’t waste your breath, you are preaching to the choir. I already study there.

Original

Why does watching sad movies help to reduce pain?
Boost our tolerance to pain.
Increase the amount of endorphins released by the brain. These are our bodies’ natural pain-killer, chemicals that make us feel better after physical or psychological pain.
What was the experiment they conducted?
Invited 169 people and divided them into two groups.
One group watched a traumatic movie and the other watched a documentary. On average the pain tolerance of those who watched the traumatic drama increased by 13.1%. This compared to an average decrease in pain threshold on 4.6% for those who watched the documentary.
Find out what these words mean: traumatic, endorphins, to determine, threshold
Traumatic=feel bad
Endorphins are chemicals that released by our brain, that make us feel better after physical or psychological pain.
to determine= to find out
threshold=tolerance

Edited version

Why does watching sad movies help to reduce pain?
It boosts our tolerance to pain.
It increases the amount of endorphins released by the brain. These are our bodies’ natural pain-killers, chemicals that make us feel better after physical or psychological pain.
What was the experiment they [researchers at Oxford Uni] conducted?
They invited 169 people and divided them into two groups.
One group watched a traumatic movie and the other watched a documentary. On average, the pain tolerance of those who watched the traumatic drama increased by 13.1%. This compared to an average decrease in pain threshold of 4.6% for those who watched the documentary.

Find out what these words mean: traumatic, endorphins, to determine, threshold

Traumatic= (trauma = shock) that makes you feel bad for a long time

The car driver died of a brain trauma after the accident.

Watching World War II documentaries on concentration camps can be very traumatic. Don’t let your kids see them.

Endorphins (endo = inside, morphine = painkiller) are chemicals that are released by our brain, that make us feel better during physical or psychological pain.

to determine= to find out, to say something for sure

I can’t determine if that is a man or a woman.

Doctors can determine the sex of a baby before it is born.

threshold = the limit between the inside and the outside, or the moment when something starts to have an effect

In Russia, it brings bad luck to shake hands over a threshold.

tolerance threshold, pain threshold = the moment when you start / stop feeling pain, or being tolerant

My pain threshold is pretty low, I’m very sensitive.

I have a very low tolerance threshold for manipulative people.

My tolerance for tickles is very low. I’m pretty ticklish.

a prank, a practical joke = a joke played on someone with no strong consequences, often on April’s Fools

Pull/play a prank on someone