English for Social Purposes – Vocabulary Extension 1A

Week 2 – LIFE
A. Your month of birth and your character

Astrological Forecast
January You are good
company (1) but you may
have a selfish streak (2).
February You have an
outgoing personality and a personality is the way you
good sense of humour.
March You have a vivid
imagination, but you tend
to lose your temper too
easily.
April You are highly
intelligent with a razor-
sharp mind.
May You set high
standards for yourself and
are fiercely (3) loyal to your
friends.
June The best aspect of your
always put others first.
July Although you can be
painfully shy in social
situations, at work you give
the impression of being
supremely confident.
August You have a tendency December You can be
to make snap decisions (4).
September You have a
strong sense of responsibility
and always keep your word5.
October You are good at
keeping secrets and never bear a
grudge( 6).
November You find it hard
to keep your temper (7) if you
think someone is making a fool
out of you (8).
brutally honest (9) and
sometimes hurt others’
feelings.

(1) people enjoy being with you (6) resent for a long time bad things
(2) you sometimes act in a selfish way others have done (7) not get angry
to you
(3) stronger than extremely (8) trying to deceive or trick you
(4) quick decisions (9) honest in a way that may hurt
(5) do what you say you will do, keep your promises

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English for Social Purposes – Vocabulary Extension 1A

B. Behaviour: verb + noun collocations

Collocation
play a joke/trick
take a joke
swallow your pride
throw a tantrum
lose your patience
come to terms with
reveal your true
character
Example Comment
The children played a joke on the NOT make a joke/trick
teacher by hiding under their desks
before she came into the room.
Fortunately, the teacher could take a = didn’t mind a joke being
joke and didn’t punish them. played
on her
Isabella swallowed her pride and = she did it even though it was
admitted that she was wrong. embarrassing for her
The child threw a tantrum when I = behaved in a very
wouldn’t buy him any sweets. uncontrolled
manner
Finally I lost my patience and = lost my temper, became
shouted at her. angry
Nick has found it hard to come to = accept something
terms with his illness. psychologically
Daniel’s failure to support her has opposite = conceal/hide your
certainly revealed his true character. true
character

PRACTICE
1. Add the missing words in these letters to a magazine where readers are discussing their
and others’ characters. You are sometimes given the first letter.
1. I know that I .......................... a tendency to
................................... a grudge, but I just can’t
forget something bad a friend did to me recently.
She has a selfish s..............................
and doesn’t care sometimes how much
she .......................... my feelings. I am finding
it increasingly hard to k............................... my
temper with her. But perhaps it might be better
to l........................... my temper and let her
know how I really feel?
Silvia M.
3. I’m a little shy with new people, though not
p................................ shy, but sometimes I
think I ............................ the impression
that I’m unfriendly. How can I convince
people that I’m good c............................. and
worth getting to know?
Tom W.
2. I have always tried to ...............................
others fi rst and not to think of myself.
I believe you should not lose your
p............................ with your friends, but if
someone seems to enjoy ................... a
fool out of you in front of other people, do
those rules of friendship still apply?
Stefan P.
4. Should I talk about personal matters to my
closest colleague at work? She is not very
good at ........................... secrets and she
has a very v.......................... imagination.
She always promises not to tell other people,
but I’m not sure she always ....................... her
word.
Jan H.

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 English for Social Purposes – Vocabulary Extension 1A

5. My boyfriend has a really friendly, o..................
personality and a great ...................... of humour.
He’s ...................... intelligent and has a
..................-sharp mind. The perfect man. We’ve
been together now for a year, and I like him a lot,
but don’t love him any more. Should I be
b......................... honest with him and tell him?
Lydia T.
6. I think a friend is destroying himself with
drugs. I feel a ................. of responsibility towards
him. He has always been f...................... loyal to
me in good and bad times, which is a wonderful
a.................... of his personality. I feel I ought
to contact the police or social services, but I don’t
want to make a s........................ decision which
I’ll regret later.
Gary J.

2. Complete B’s remarks in these conversations so that they mean more or less the same
as A’s, using collocations from the opposite page.
1 A: Charlie’s found it hard to accept psychologically the fact that he’s now divorced.
B: Yes, he’s found it hard ............................................... with his new situation.
2 A: Parker’s problem is he can’t laugh when people play jokes on him.
B: No, it’s true. He just can’t ..............................................., can he?
3 A: Well, Sara’s behaviour last night certainly showed the truth about her.
B: Yes, it certainly ............................................... .
4 A: She always has very high expectations of both herself and her children.
B: Yes, she always ............................................... .
5 A: Max started screaming and stamping his feet when I tried to put him to bed.
B: Well, two-year-olds oft en ............................................... .

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 English for Social Purposes – Vocabulary Extension 1A
C. Online research

What’s the best way to use the Internet for your research? Here’s our quick guide:
A good place to start is by looking at a definition of your topic or your essay question and making
a note of any keywords. Use those to do a web search and start reading through the results.
You may not find what you need first time, but there are a lot of online resources (1) to help you
search effectively. For example, many search engines have ‘hints and tips’ pages which show you
how to use them more efficiently and this can help you to refine your search (2).
It’s important to evaluate sites critically (3), so check who wrote the information and when.
One way to access reliable information is to subscribe to online Journals (4) to get more
information on specific topics such as medicine, science etc. You can often search by keyword in
back issues (5) to find older articles that might be relevant.
And remember, once you’ve found information you want to use, don’t just copy and paste it into
your essay! You will need to rewrite the information in your own words. Be sure you keep a
record of the source so you can reference it correctly in your work.
(4) to pay for or ask to receive (journals) regularly
(1) useful online materials
(2) make your search more accurate (e.g. by searching (5) previous editions of a magazine, newspaper or
for more words or changing the settings) journal

(3) think carefully about whether something is reliable

or truthful

PRACTICE
3. Look at C. Match the beginning of each sentence on the left with its ending on the right.
1 When I write an essay, I start by doing a a) and tips pages which helped me when I
web started writing essays.
2 Many university libraries subscribe to b) a note of it! I’ll have to email him.
3 The college website has some good hints c) online journals so that students can access
them for free.
4 When I find a useful site, I usually copy d) search of key words in the question.
and
5 Our professor mentioned a really useful e) your search by using more keywords.
website, but I didn’t make
6 If you get too many results, you could f) paste the address into a separate document.
refine

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English for Social Purposes – Vocabulary Extension 1A

4. Choose the word which does NOT fit in each sentence

1 It took ages, but he finally uploaded all his .............................................. to the cloud.
a) data b) files c) spam
2 I need to back up my ...............................................
a) hints and tips b) folders c) data
3 Somebody hacked into my ...............................................
a) computer b) virus c) system
4 I always back up my most important files on a(n) ...............................................
a) anti-virus software b) cloud storage system c) memory stick

5. Put the words in order to make sentences.

1 note / websites / most / I / a / of / the / made / useful
............................................... ............................................... ...............................................
2 the / keyword / can / by / search / You / database
............................................... ............................................... ...............................................
3 from / need / evaluate / You / to / information / critically / websites
............................................... ............................................... ...............................................
4 some / searched / We / through / the / of / issues / back
............................................... ............................................... ...............................................
D. A learning process

As I had planned a holiday in Spain, I decided to brush up on my Spanish

before I went, and I enrolled on a local evening course. At first I had to rack my
brains to remember anything, and I couldn’t make sense of the grammar, so it
was very hard to keep up with the other students. Then, after a while, things
started coming back to me, and I realized there were lots of words on the tip of
my tongue. But some of the new vocabulary wouldn’t sink in – words just went
in one ear and out the other. When you work hard all day, it’s not easy to keep
your mind on a difficult subject in the evening. But I stuck at it, and I began to
pick things up more quickly. All I have to do now is keep it up.

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English for Social Purposes – Vocabulary Extension 1A

Glossary
brush up on sth/ brush sth up improve your knowledge or skill in sth, especially when you
have not used it for a period of time.
make sense of sth manage to understand sth
keep up (with sb) make progress at the same speed as others
sink in (of information or experiences) be remembered or
understood
keep your mind on sth continue to concentrate on sth
pick sth up learn sth without making a big effort
keep it up continue to do sth as well as you are doing it now
PRACTICE
6. Complete the six phrases using words in the box
the tip in one ear your sense of something of my
brains tongue
it up and out the other your mind on something

rack ……………….. on ………………..

keep ……………….. make ………………..
go ……………….. keep ………………..
7. Complete the sentences
1. I often find that I have words ……………….. the tip of my ………………..
2. I often have to ……………….. my brains to remember things I’ve leant recently.
3. I think I’m doing really well in English, but I need to ……………….. it up.
4. I’m bad at languages. New words go in one ……………….. and out the ………………..
5. I’m not good at languages. I can usually ……………….. things up quite quickly.
6. I find it quite hard to ……………….. sense of the Present Perfect in English.
7. If I don’t write down new words as I learn them, they don’t sink………………..
8. I need to brush……………….. on irregular English verbs.
9. When I practice speaking, I find that lots of words……………….. back to me.