A. When things go right

If something or things…

1. works like a dream this means a plan succeeded absolutely perfectly
2. went according to plan this means they occurred exactly as intended
3. went/ran like clockwork this means they went smoothly with no difficulty
4. is/are up and running this means it has/ they have begun to work as planned
5. is/are falling into place this means it is/ they are on the point of starting to work well
6. is/are looking up this means they are looking very positive

B. When things go wrong

1. Oh no! That’s all we needed! ( in response to news that makes current problems even worse)
2. That’s the last thing we wanted to hear! ( in response to news that fulfills your worst fears)
3. This is like a bad dream! ( when one bad thing after other happens in quick succession)
4. It’s a real nightmare. ( used very generally for traffic jams )
5. What a pain! (very general…for something that causes difficulty)
6. It’s the calm before the storm. ( when things are quiet, but you fear they are about to change)

C. Confusing situations or situations you don’t understand

1. When she said her name was Bloor it threw me completely. ( I did not know how to respond)
2. The event he organized was complete shambles. ( a totally disorganized event)
3. It’s a mystery to me, how people know my private life. ( something that I cannot understand )
4. I am sorry we must have got our wires crossed. ( a miscommunication/ a misunderstanding)
5. We can’t see the wood for the trees.( too much detail prevents us to see the overall situation)

D. Resolving difficulty (or failing to do so)

1. It’s nothing it’s just a storm in the teacup. ( a lot of fuss)
2. That was a close call/thing. ( It was almost a disaster)
3. We solved the problem at the eleventh hour. ( at the very last minute)
4. It was all just brushed under the carpet. ( never resolved, never mentioned again)

Read and share with us a few Idioms you know! It’s going to be very interesting. We are awaiting your response.

Regards,

Team- Learnwordlist.com

Types of meaning

A. Basic meaning: when you look up a word, the main thing that you want to know is its basic meaning. For ex, in ‘She has fair hair, the word fair= light, opposite of dark or in It’s time to wind up the discussion now, the words wind up= end’.

However, there are lot of other aspects of meaning that it is important to be aware of, particularly when you are studying in more advanced level of English.

B. Polysemy or multiple meanings: A great many words in English have more than one meaning. Look at fair and wind up and their different meanings in these examples:

1. That wasn’t a very fair thing to say (adjective: just)

2. The handsome knight fell in love with the fair maiden (adjective: beautiful)

3. His knowledge of French is fair (adjective: neither very bad nor very good)

4. She has a fair chance of winning the prize (adjective: reasonable)

5. Fair weather is forecast for tomorrow (adjective: dry and pleasant)

6. There is a fair on at the park this week (noun: public event with games and rides)

1. Don’t forget to wind up your watch (turn a knob on a clock work watch so it keeps going).
2. She seems to enjoy winding him up. ( tell someone something in order to deliberately annoy)
3. If he carries on like this he’s going to wind up in prison. ( end up in an unpleasant situation)

C. Synonymy: English has a lot of different words with similar and slightly different meanings. Look these words that are synonymous with fair and wind up (with the meanings illustrated in A):

Fair- light, blonde, colorless, pale, bleached

Wind up- end, finish, complete, close, close, conclude, terminate, discontinue, and abort

D. Collocation: words are used with each other in fairly fixed ways in English. You cannot, for example use all of the synonyms in C as replacements in the example sentences in A. Hair ca be fair, light, blonde or bleached (though each of these has a slightly different meaning) but it is not usually described as pale or colorless. Skin can be fair, light and pale but it is not usually described as blonde, colorless or bleached. Colorless collocates with, for example gas or liquid.

E. Connotation: Words do not only have meanings, they also have associations. At an advanced level of English, it is important to develop an impression of what connotations certain words have. The sentence ‘who is fairest of them all’, for example, immediately makes English speakers think of the wicked step mother in the children’s fairy tale Snow White and the fairer sex refers to women. Fair meaning beautiful or attractive is an old-fashioned word and it has associations with fairy tales and stories about the past.

F. Register: It is important also to note whether any words you are learning have a particular register. For example, apparel is a formal or literary word and to wind up someone is both British and informal.

I want you all to come up with similar words like fair/wind up and their usage.

I shall wait for your response.

Kind Regards,

Anu Veluri

Manager, Learnwordlist.com

]]> http://learnwordlist.com/blog/experts-say/2009/05/gre-word-list-test-blog-barrons-vocabulary/feed 9 http://learnwordlist.com/blog/silence-is-not-golden/2009/03/gre-word-list-test-blog-barrons-vocabulary http://learnwordlist.com/blog/silence-is-not-golden/2009/03/gre-word-list-test-blog-barrons-vocabulary#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:49:42 +0000 Admin http://learnwordlist.com/blog/?p=3 How true!! I had to rewrite this proverb in order to meet the requirement of GRE students.

“Words, Words and Words”, this is all about GRE Verbal. The more words you know the brighter the chances of securing an awesome score in the Verbal Ability segment. The brighter are the chances for securing a seat in that coveted University you always aspired to be in.

As most of us know the GRE Verbal Ability part has four main sections- Antonyms, Sentence Completion, Analogies and Reading Comprehension I would like to start a sequence of explanation for all the major components of the GRE. To begin with, I will first deal with Vocabulary as one major controlling factor to crack the first three question types in the aforementioned sentence.

The Wikipedia defines Vocabulary as a person’s set of words he/she is familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. I guess we all now understand how justified is the ETS to include this very pertinent field in order to sift the rightful candidates for the American Universities.

Adding to your vocabulary is certainly not a Herculean task. It is much easier than you realize. Setting realistic goals for snow balling your vocabulary list is very important. An average person would have, not more than 1000-1500 words stored in his/her memory. When I say 1500 it’s a bit on the higher side!! At the same time one cannot become a Winston Churchill with an awesome 10,000 words at one’s command! To score a perfect 800 in GRE Verbal you need to have a decent understanding of say 3500 words (which are usually termed – High Frequency GRE Words). They are called ‘High Frequency’ because once you land in the US of A; you will get to hear these words the most on the College Campus. Once you equip yourself with these magical words, you would be able to locate yourself more appropriately. There would be no embarrassing occasion (misunderstanding, misconstruing) whatsoever.

I would now like to speak on some ‘realistic goals’ that you may like to set for yourself. But before dealing with the ‘realistic’ goals I would like to comment on the ‘unrealistic’ ones.

Some unrealistic goals students set for themselves:

1. Learning 20-30 new words a day!
2. ‘Remembering words’ and ‘learning by heart’ techniques
3. Memorizing words in sequence, i.e. (let me first complete list A and then I will go to list B…that’s a big pain in the neck isn’t it?…phew!!)
4. Learning the words mechanically without imbibing it’s flavor
5. Not caring even a bit for the word history and considering test taking a sheer mechanical process

What are the realistic goals?

1. Start adding to your ‘Vocabulary’ list well in advance
2. Do not try to imbibe the meaning of more than 3-5 words a day
3. Learn the ‘synonyms’ of the words that you shortlist for a day
4. Start reading good magazines, journals and newspapers
5. Develop vision, ear and heart for good words
6. Adding to vocabulary is fun! Do not make it a stress generating act for yourself!

The more words you know, the more articulate speaker you can be. Such a credential boosts and enhances your confidence, building your profile cut above the rest!

Therefore, for all you aspirants!

Silence is definitely not golden in today’s competitive world. Hope all you guys now would surely agree with me.

Stay tuned to my Blog to catch up with a Series on GRE Verbal Prep Strategies and more comments on Vocabulary Development/ Improvement Strategy.

Kindly post queries on the topic if any.

Anu Veluri

Manager- Learnwordlist.com

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