Word Smart в упражнениях

А.С. Самигуллина

WORD SMART
в упражнениях

Учебное пособие

Москва
Издательство «ФЛИНТА»
2019

УДК 811.111(076.5)
ББК  81.432.1я73

С17 

С17

Самигуллина А.С.
     Word Smart в упражнениях  [Электронный ресурс] : учеб. 
пособие / А.С. Самигуллина. — М. : ФЛИНТА, 2019. — 148 с.

ISBN 978-5-9765-3929-7

Цель пособия — создание дополнительных возможностей для 
учащихся в плане освоения аудио-курса Word Smart Vocabulary 
Building Program. В пособие включены упражнения переводного 
характера, упражнения для закрепления словообразовательных 
особенностей 
лексических 
единиц, 
упражнения 
на 
заполнение пропусков, а также упражнения на соотнесение 
дефиниции c ключевой лексической единицей. Пособие состоит из 
14 
разделов, 
что 
соответствует 
количеству 
групп 
слов, 
покрываемых аудио-курсом.

Для студентов старших курсов языковых вузов.

УДК 811.111(076.5)
ББК  81.432.1я73

ISBN 978-5-9765-3929-7
© Самигуллина А.С., 2019
       © Издательство «ФЛИНТА», 2019

Предисловие

Цель настоящего учебного пособия состоит в создании дополнительных возможностей для учащихся в плане освоения аудио-курса 
Word Smart Vocabulary Building Program. Сам курс разбит на 14 групп 
(all or nothing words; I love you ...I hate you words; the naughty and the nice 
words; the long and the short of it words; the mighty and the meek words; 
you help me then you hurt me words; true or false words; from the sublime 
to the ridiculous words; something old ... something new words; alone or 
together words; now you see it now you don’t words; the more things change, 
the more they stay the same words; park and ride words; shadows and light 
words), каждая из которых имеет две подгруппы, которые содержат по 
7-8 широкоупотребительных лексических единиц для активного обсуждения и запоминания.
Необходимость создания данного пособия проистекает из того обстоятельства, что для качественного освоения курса необходима система 
тренировочных упражнений, направленных не только на закрепление 
прослушанного материала, но и на адаптирование данного материала 
под коммуникативные нужды и потребности обучающихся.
Разработанная нами система упражнений включает в себя упражнения как переводного характера (перевод с английского языка на русский 
и с русского языка на английский), так и упражнения для закрепления 
словообразовательных особенностей лексических единиц, упражнения 
на заполнение пропусков (gap-filling exercises), а также упражнения на 
соотнесение дефиниции c ключевой лексической единицей (matching 
exercises).
Пособие разбито на 14 разделов, что соответствует количеству групп 
слов, покрываемых аудио-курсом.
Предлагаемое пособие имеет практическую направленность и предназначено как для студентов старших курсов языковых вузов, так и для 
широкого круга любителей английского языка.
Официальную версию аудио-курса можно приобрести по ссылке: https://
www.amazon.com/Princeton-Review-Word-Smart-Vocabulary/dp/0609811096

Section 1 
All or Nothing

THE ALL — WORDS

Task 1.1. Listen to the recording and pay attention to the definitions 
and examples provided.

prodigious — enormous, extraordinary;
e.g. To fill the Grand Canyon with ping-pong balls would be a prodigious 
undertaking.

prodigy — an extremely talented, gifted child;
e.g. The young prodigy played all of Beethoven on her harmonica. This 
prodigy has prodigious talents.

prolific — producing a lot of something, fruitful or fertile, productive;
e.g. A prolific writer writes a lot of books.
e.g. Picasso was both a prolific painter and a prolific lover. He created 
thousands of paintings and had almost as many romantic affairs.

proliferate — to spread or grow rapidly;
e.g. Honey bees proliferated when we filled our yard with flowering plants.
e.g. The recent arms treaty promises to end the decades of nuclear weapons 
proliferation.

plethora — an excess, a great deal;
e.g. Letting the air force use our backyard as a bombing range created a 
plethora of problems.

munificent — generous, lavish, lavishly giving;
e.g. The munificent millionaire gave money to practically every charity that 
came along. He was well-loved for his munificence.

squander — to waste;
e.g. This guy has been known to squander millions on ping-pong balls; he 
wants to fill the Grand Canyon with them. What a waste!

aggregate — the sum total; a collection of things mixed together;
e.g. This section of ‘Words Smart’ is an aggregate of different words that all 
describe large amounts of things and what can happen to or be done with 
large amounts of things.

Task 1.2. Listen to the text and fill in the gaps using the words from 
the list above.

SPEAKER: The job of organizing international tours for a symphony 
orchestra isn’t easy. There are countless tasks to attend to and a 1) ___________ 
number of details. We are not a rich organization, so we depend largely upon 
the 2) ___________ of wealthy sponsors. Unfortunately, many potential sponsors 
look upon donations to the orchestra as a waste, just money 3) ___________. 
But I try to convince them otherwise. Our orchestra is a collection of a wide 
variety of people. It’s an 4) ___________ of artists and managers. Unfortunately 
with such a large number of people, such a 5) ___________ of personalities, 
fights are frequent. And it just gets worse as the season wears on. Arguments 
multiply, disputes 6) ___________. Our programme on this tour will be devoted 
mostly to Mozart, who wrote hundreds of great pieces of music. He was one 
of the most 7) ___________ of all great classical composers. Like Mozart our 
nine-year-old piano soloist is a world-renowned 8) ___________. She is very 
gifted. If not a little preoccupied by Saturday morning cartoons.

THE NOTHING — WORDS

Task 1.3. Listen to the recording and pay attention to the definitions 
and examples provided.

paucity — scarcity, insufficiency;
e.g. A pauper has a paucity of cash.
e.g. The paucity of fresh vegetables at the market forced us to buy frozen  
ones.

dearth — lack, scarcity;
e.g. When there is a dearth of food, people will go hungry.
e.g. There is no dearth of comedy at the clown convention, the comedy is 
everywhere.

nominal — insignificant, small;
e.g. Being named as a mere formality, the cost was nominal in comparison 
to what we received.
e.g. The rain while a pain had a nominal effect on our fun of the football 
game. We had a blast.

frugal — economical, penny-pinching;
e.g. Anna’s frugality annoyed her husband, who loved nothing better than 
to spend money.
e.g. Furthermore, we were as frugal as we could be, but we still ended up 
several thousand dollars in debt.

parsimony — stinginess;

parsimonious — stingy;
e.g. Take, for example, the old widow, who was so parsimonious, she hanged/
hung her tea bags after drying her clotheslines, so that she would be able 
to use them again.

attrition — a gradual loss, a natural unexpected decrease in number and size.
e.g. Single-sex colleges, the few that are left, have the highest rates of attrition 
among most colleges in America. Many speculate that the students leave to 
finish their education at schools with students of both sexes.

mini(u)scule — very tiny, small;
e.g. Sheila’s skirt was so miniscule; it could have passed for a belt.
e.g. Arnold knew his father was exaggerating when he told him he would 
only take a miniscule effort to clean up his room.

penury — poverty;
e.g. Having blown his lottery winnings on plastic kazoos Mark was reduced 
to penury. He’d better get a job.

Task 1.4. Listen to the text and fill in the gaps using the words from 
the list above.

NUN: Our income here at the convent at the moment is so minimal, we are 
forced to live a life of 1) ___________. But even though we must watch every 
penny and be 2) ___________ almost to a fault, there is still room for charity. 

Just because we are poor doesn’t mean that we have to be 3) ___________. 
Where do we get our money, you ask? Donations, of course. And we do 
ask those who wish to become a part of our convent for a small initiation 
fee, just a 4) ___________ payment really. So small you might even call it 
5) ___________. Actually, I shouldn’t have even mentioned it since we almost 
never get a chance to collect it anymore. You see not only have our ranks 
grown smaller due to 6) ___________, but there has also been a noticeable 
7) ___________ of new-comers in recent years. Oh well, I suppose, young 
people today just aren’t tough enough for a life lacking ordinary comforts and 
a 8) ___________ of even the simplest material items, not to mention luxuries.

Task 1.5. Match the words and their definitions.

WORD
DEFINITION

1. paucity 
a) the sum total; a collection of things mixed together

2. dearth 
b) an excess, a great deal

3. nominal 
c) to waste

4. frugal 
d) an extremely talented, gifted child

5. parsimonious 
e) scarcity, insufficiency

6. parsimony 
f) enormous, extraordinary

7. attrition 
g) generous, lavish, lavishly giving

8. mini(u)scule
h) insignificant, small

9. penury 
i) lack, scarcity

10. prodigious 
j) stingy

11. prodigy 
k) poverty

12. prolific 
l) economical, penny-pinching

13. proliferate 
m) producing a lot of something, fruitful or fertile, productive

14. plethora 
n) a gradual loss, a natural unexpected decrease in number 
and size

15. munificent 
o) stinginess

16. squander 
p) to spread or grow rapidly

17. aggregate
q) very tiny, small

Task 1.6. Complete the table with derivatives. Use a dictionary 
to check your answers. The first row has been completed as an 
example.

NOUN
VERB
ADJECTIVE
(PARTICIPLE)
ADVERB

parsimony
–
(un)parsimonious
(un)parsimoniously

paucity
–
–
–

dearth

nominal

frugal

attrition

mini(u)scule

penury

prodigy
prodigious

proliferate
prolific

plethora

munificent

squander

aggregate

Task 1.7. Translate from English into Russian.

1. Attrition is high among social workers because of the difficult work 
and poor pay.
2. Rumors about the incident proliferated on the Internet.
3. The 19-year-old Aouar is the latest young talent to come through Lyon’s 
prodigious youth academy, and was recently supervised by Barcelona.
4. If so, such documents could have proven that Bo and Gu lived beyond 
their apparent means, since government salaries are minuscule.
5. The family lived with a contradictory sense of parsimony and indulgence, 
“both beyond and below our means.”

6. A writer as established and prolific as Joyce Carol Oates can approach 
her material in a wealth of ways unavailable to the more plodding.
7. They’ll quite happily squander a whole year’s savings on two weeks in 
the sun.
8. Like the best pop stars, Swift has borrowed from a plethora of genres 
and influences.
9. No democratic government could ever plunge its people into penury and 
hope to stay in power.
10. This new drug is being hailed as the latest prodigy of the medical world.
11. A former student has donated a munificent sum of money to the college.
12. His meals are the frugal fare of the poor: tea, bread, yogurt, a bit of 
cheese, vegetables. 
13. And so despite the dearth of details, the announcement made a splash 
in the business world, prompting optimism that someone may finally 
be on the verge of reforming the expensive and complex health care  
industry.
14. But the fighting continues, and grows worse, despite a nominal ceasefire.
15. Poor health care, a paucity of jobs, and a sense of instability is now 
taking its toll.
16. The goal of analyzing and interpreting data is to reduce the enormous 
amount of raw data that have been collected to a manageable aggregate.

Task 1.8. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the 
lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line. You may 
use the given form of the word if necessary. 

1.
He would never ask her to be ___________, — never 
even to be economical.
PARSIMONY

2.
There was a ___________ supply of canned food kept 
in the basement for emergencies.
PRODIGY

3.
There is a ___________ of new homes in the region.
DEARTH

4.
Glackens was a ___________ cartoonist in Philadelphia 
and his comics are one of the most surprising elements 
in the Puck book.
PROLIFERATE

5.
She loves tiny white flowers with ___________ yellow 
centers.
MINUSCULE

6.
Within hours of the pictures ending up online, a ___________
of articles were written.
PLETHORA

7.
Part of that lies in the ___________ of documentation of
what the Vikings actually did during their raids.
PAUCITY

8.
I thanked them for their ___________. They made a
truly lavish donation.
MUNIFICENT

9.
We had very little money, so we ate ___________ in
cheap cafés.
FRUGAL

10.
There never was such a ___________ of his own
immeasurable riches.
SQUANDER

11.
Three percent is probably more than most of us received
in raises, but by federal standards it’s ___________.
PENURY

12.
These can be procured through any local dealer at a
___________ sum.
NOMINALLY 

13.
From a nearby town came “crews of eager young men”
who “pitched in” through the “___________, swirling,
arctic-like night.”
ATTRITION

14.
A good example of such a service is the NewsIsFree
website, a news ___________.
AGGREGATE

Task 1.9. Translate from Russian into English.

1. Если некоторые люди испытывают нехватку моющих средств, то
они идут в ближайший магазин и стараются их приобрести по
номинальной цене.
2. Расточительность жены довела мистера Бина до нищеты. Он перестал тратить значительные суммы денег на благотворительность
и стал очень экономным человеком.
3. Истощение запасов еды, недостаток одежды и средств личной гигиены вынудило беженцев искать новое место для стоянки.
4. Твоя патологическая жадность всегда является причиной большого
количества социальных проблем.
5. Старик посмотрел на свой сад и изрек, что этот год будет богатым
не только на яблоки, но и на груши.