TỪ VỰNG TOEIC unit 19

Biology, for instance, is the study of living forms and life processes; the biosphere is the entire area of and above the earth where life can exist; and biotechnology is the use of livi

Unit 19

BIO GEN FUNCT MUT FRACT TELE PHIL NEG DEC CENT NumberWords

Quiz 19-1 Quiz 19-2 Quiz 19-3 Quiz 19-4 Quiz 19-5 Review Quizzes 19

BIO comes from the Greek word for “life,” and forms the base for many

English words Biology, for instance, is the study of living forms and life processes; the biosphere is the entire area of and above the earth where life can exist; and biotechnology is the use of living organisms to create useful

products

bionic Made stronger or more capable by electronic or mechanicaldevices

• Bionic feet and hands for amputees have ceased to be mere sci-fi fantasiesand are becoming realities

The science of bionics uses knowledge about how biological systems work to

help solve engineering problems The material Velcro, for example, wasinspired by the way burrs behave when they stick to your clothes, and somecomputer chips are now wired in ways that imitate the “wiring” of the brain

and nervous system But in popular use, the adjective bionic almost always

describes artificial limbs or other bodily parts that work as much like realones as possible A perfect bionic arm would move and function as easily as areal arm—a goal we're rapidly getting closer to

biopsy The removal and examination of tissue, cells, or fluidsfrom a living body

• Everyone felt relieved when the results of the biopsy showed the tumorwasn't cancerous

Matter examined in a biopsy is always taken from a living organism Mostbiopsies are done by using a needle to extract tissue or fluid, but some mayinstead require cutting, and others may amount to nothing more thanswabbing the inside of the patient's cheek Biopsies are best known as ameans of detecting cancer, but a doctor may also take a biopsy of heartmuscle to investigate suspected heart disease, for example, or perform abiopsy on a pregnant woman to test for disorders in the fetus

biodegradable Able to be broken down into harmlesssubstances by microorganisms or other living things

• Though the advertisements promised that the entire package wasbiodegradable, environmentalists expressed their doubts

In biodegradable, with its root grad, “to step or move,” and its prefix

de-“downward,” we get an adjective describing things that can be broken downinto basic substances through normal environmental processes Animal andplant products are normally biodegradable, but mineral substances such asmetals, glass, and plastics usually are not Newly developed biodegradableplastics are now appearing in numerous products However, “biodegradable”products can vary greatly in how long they take to break down A loaf ofbread may require only a couple of weeks, and a piece of paper may vanish in

a couple of months, but some “biodegradable” plastic milk cartons may takefour or five years

symbiosis (1) The close living together of two differentforms of life in a way that benefits both (2) A cooperative relationshipbetween two people or groups

• The lichen that grows on rocks is produced by the symbiosis of a fungusand an alga, two very different organisms

With its prefix sym-, “with,” symbiosis expresses the notion of cooperation between living things Symbiotic associations are found throughout the plant

and animal world You may have read, for instance, of the little blackbirdplover, which picks the teeth of the fierce African crocodile Or the birdcalled the African honeyguide, which leads a little mammal called the ratel to

a bees' nest, which the ratel, protected from the bees by its thick fur, thenbreaks open, and both it and the honeyguide feast on the honey Or even ourown bodies, which are home to millions of bacteria—especially the

bacterium E coli in our intestines—and neither we nor E coli could live

without the other You can probably think of plenty of human relationshipsthat could be called symbiotic as well

GEN, which comes from the Greek genos, meaning “birth,” has generated

dozens of English words A set of genes, for instance, gives birth to a living being And a genealogy is a historical map of your family, showing how each generation gave birth to the next.

genesis Origin, beginning

• The genesis of the project dates back to 1976, when the two young menwere roommates at Cornell University

The traditional Greek name for the first and best-known book of the Bible isGenesis, meaning “origin.” Genesis tells the stories of the creation, Adamand Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's ark, the Tower of Babel, Abraham and hissons, and more—the stories that explain how the world and humanity werecreated, as well as much about how humanity, and especially the descendants

of Abraham, relate to the rest of the world Today we use genesis to refer to

the creative beginnings of much smaller things, but never unimportant ones

generator A machine by which mechanical energy ischanged into electrical energy

• The jungle settlement depended on a large generator, which providedelectricity for a couple of hours each morning and evening

Generators work by rotating a coil of wire in a magnetic field, causing acurrent to flow in the wire A generator may be a huge spinning turbinepowered by water, wind, steam, gas, or nuclear reactions, which sendselectricity out through power lines to thousands of customers But normallywhen we use the word, we're thinking of a small machine powered bygasoline or diesel, such as you might keep in your basement for those timeswhen a storm knocks out your power, to create electricity right in front ofyour eyes A special kind of generator called an alternator powers a car'selectrical system (including its lights, power steering, etc.) while the car isrunning

genre Kind, sort; especially a distinctive type or category ofliterature, art, or music

• Opera was a new genre for her, since all her compositions up until then hadbeen songs and chamber music

Genre, as you might guess from the way it sounds, comes straight from French, a language based on Latin It's closely related to genus, a word you may have encountered in biology class Both words contain the gen- root

because they indicate that everything in a particular category (a genre or agenus) belongs to the same “family” and thus has the same origins So themain genres of classical music would include symphonies, sonatas, andopera, and the major genres of literature would include novels, short stories,poetry, and drama But within the category of novels, we could also say thatdetective novels, sci-fi novels, romance novels, and young-adult novels areseparate genres

carcinogenic Producing or causing cancer

• Although she knows all too well that the tobacco in cigarettes iscarcinogenic, she's too addicted to quit

It sometimes seems as if the list of carcinogenic substances gets longer everyday A substance such as a food additive that's been in common use for yearsmay unexpectedly show signs of being carcinogenic in laboratory

experiments When that happens, the suspected carcinogen will often have to

be withdrawn from the market When a building material like asbestos turnsout to be a carcinogen, it may also have to be physically removed from

buildings English has hundreds of other scientific words ending in -genic (such as allergenic), and in almost all of them the ending means “causing.”

3 Any insecticides that are known to be _ have supposedly been banned

by the federal government

4 Just about everything in our bodies is _ except the fillings in our teeth

5 She had a physical last week, and the doctor ordered a _ of a looking patch of skin

suspicious-6 After 50 years of marriage, the _ between them is just about total

7 About once a year, an ice storm knocks out the electricity, and we haul outthe _ to get everything going again

8 She loved various kinds of classical music, but the string quartet was one _ that she could never warm up to

Answers

B Indicate whether the following pairs have the same or different meanings:

FUNCT comes from the Latin verb fungi, “to perform, carry out.” If your car

is functional, it's able to perform its function of providing transportation But

a functional illiterate is a person who, for all practical or functional purposes,

might as well not be able to read or write at all

functionary (1) Someone who performs a certainfunction (2) Someone who holds a position in a political party orgovernment

• He was one of a group of party functionaries assigned to do the dirty work

of the campaign

For most of us, being described as a functionary wouldn't be a compliment.

The word refers especially to a person of lower rank, with little or no

authority, who must carry out someone else's orders Bureaucrat is often a synonym However, functionary can also refer to the world beyond

government and offices; a character in a play, for example, could be called afunctionary if it was obvious that her sole function was to keep the plotmoving

malfunction To fail to operate in the normal or usualmanner

• An examination of the wreck revealed that the brakes may havemalfunctioned as the truck started down the hill

A malfunctioning switch might keep us from turning on a light Amalfunctioning heart valve might require replacement with an artificial valve,and if your immune system malfunctions it may start to attack healthy cells

And a malfunction in a voting machine could result in hundreds of votes

being miscounted

defunct No longer, living, existing, or functioning

• The company, which had once had annual sales of $150 million, was nowdefunct

If you know that de- often means “the opposite of” (see DE), it's easy to

guess the meaning of defunct Shakespeare seems to have been the first writer

to use this adjective, in Henry V Defunct American political parties include

the Greenback Party, the Readjuster Party, and the Nullifier Party DefunctAcademy Awards categories include Best Dance Direction and Best AssistantDirector Defunct U.S auto models include the Dudly Bug, the LuLu, theHupmobile, the Gas-au-lec, and the Nu-Klea Starlite But to speak of aperson as defunct would sound disrespectful—which is how it sounds in e e.cummings's famous poem “Buffalo Bill's defunct.”

dysfunctional (1) Showing abnormal or unhealthybehaviors and attitudes within a group of people (2) Being unable to function

in a normal way

• A psychologist would call their family dysfunctional, but even thoughthere's a lot of yelling and slamming of doors, they seem pretty happy to me

Dysfunctional and dysfunction have been used for almost a hundred years,

often in medical writing (“brain dysfunction,” “a dysfunctional liver”) butalso by social scientists (“a dysfunctional city council,” “diplomaticdysfunction”) But they only really entered the general vocabulary in the1980s, when therapists and talk-show hosts began talking about dysfunctionalfamilies The signs of family dysfunction turned out to be numerous, and itsoon began to seem as if pretty much all our families could be calleddysfunctional

MUT comes from the Latin mutare, “to change.” Plenty of science-fiction

movies—Godzilla, The Fly, The Incredible Shrinking Man—used to be made

on the subject of weird mutations, changes in normal people or animals that

usually end up causing death and destruction What causes the unfortunate

victim to mutate may be a mysterious or alien force, or perhaps invisible

radiation Though the science in these films isn't always right on target, the

scare factor of an army of mutants can be hard to beat.

commute (1) To exchange or substitute; especially to change apenalty to another one that is less severe (2) To travel back and forthregularly

• There was a public outcry at the harshness of the prison sentence, and twodays later the governor commuted it to five years

When you commute between a suburb and a city, you're “exchanging” onelocation for another When a chief executive substitutes a life sentence for thedeath sentence handed down by a court, he or she is commuting the original

sentence Most such commutations are the result of the prisoner's good behavior A commutator is a device in many electric motors that regularly

changes alternating current to direct current

immutable Not able or liable to change

• Early philosophers believed there was an immutable substance at the root ofall existence

Mutable means simply “changeable,” so when the negative prefix im- is

added we get its opposite In computer programming, an immutable object isone that can't be changed after it's been created In a constantly changingworld, people who hunger for things as immutable as the laws of nature maytry to observe an immutable moral code and set of values Unfortunately,

immutability isn't a basic quality of many things in this world.

permutation A change in the order of a set of objects;rearrangement, variation

• They had rearranged the rooms in the house plans four or five times already,but the architect had come up with yet another permutation

There are six permutations of the letters A, B, and C, selected two at a time:

AB, AC, BC, BA, CA, and CB As you see, order is important in

permutations (By contrast, there are only three combinations: AB, AC, and

BC.) Permutation is an important concept in mathematics, especially in thefield of probability But we can use the word more generally to mean anychange produced by rearranging existing parts without introducing new ones.Some soap operas, for example, love permutations; the cast of regulars isconstantly being rearranged into new pairs, and even triangles

transmute (1) To change in shape, appearance, or nature,especially for the better; to transform (2) To experience such a change

• Working alone in his cluttered laboratory in 15th-century Milan, he spenttwenty years searching for a method of transmuting lead into gold

Transmutation changes something over into something else Thus, a writer

may transmute his life into stories or novels, and an arranger might transmute

a lively march tune into a quiet lullaby In the “Myth of Er” at the end of

Plato's Republic, for example, human souls are transmuted into the body and existence of their choice Having learned from their last life what they do not

want to be, many choose transmutation into something that seems better Ameek man chooses to be transmuted into a tyrant, a farmer into a dashing (butshort-lived) warrior, and so on But very few seem to have learned anythingfrom their former life that would make their choice a real improvement

B Complete the analogies:

1 hostile : friendly :: immutable : _

a changeable b decaying c breathable d out of date

2 wounded : healed :: dysfunctional : _

a lame b healthy c crippled d unsteady

3 permit : allow :: commute : _

a review b claim c substitute d send

4 healthy : vigorous :: defunct : _

a brainless b failed c strong d unhappy

5 order : sequence :: permutation : _

a addition b notion c rearrangement d removal

6 soldier : army :: functionary : _

a anthill b stadium c vacation d organization

7 transmit : send :: transmute : _

a transit b transform c transfer d transport

8 misbehave : scold :: malfunction : _

a function b fix c exchange d rearrange

Answers

FRACT comes from the Latin verb frangere, “to break or shatter.” A

fraction is one of the pieces into which a whole can be broken, and a fracture

is a break in a wall, a rock, or a bone

fractious (1) Apt to cause trouble or be unruly (2) Stirring upquarrels; irritable

• Shopping with a fractious child is next to impossible

One of the earliest meanings of fraction was “a break in good feeling”—that

is, an argument or conflict So a person who starts fights could be calledfractious A fractious horse is one that hasn't been properly broken or trained

A fractious political party is one whose members keep fighting amongthemselves And a fractious baby is one that's always breaking the home'speace and quiet with angry squalling

fractal An irregular shape that looks much the same at any scale

infraction The breaking of a law or a violation of another'srights

• The assistant principal dealt with any students who had committed minorinfractions of the rules

An infraction is usually the breaking of a law, rule, or agreement So a nationcharged with an infraction of an international treaty will usually have to pay apenalty In Federal law, an infraction is even smaller than a misdemeanor,and the only penalty is a fine Most of us occasionally commit infractions ofparking laws and get ticketed; speeding tickets are usually for infractions aswell, though they go on a permanent record and can end up costing you

money for years to come The closely related word infringement generally

refers to a violation of a right or privilege; use of another's writings withoutpermission, for example, may be an infringement of the copyright

refraction The change of direction of a ray of light or wave

of energy as it passes at an angle from one substance into another in which itsspeed is different

• From where I was standing, the refraction made it look as if her legsunderwater were half their actual length

The root of refraction is seen in the notion that the path of a ray of light or

wave of energy is “broken” when it is deflected or turned The effects ofrefraction can be seen in a rainbow, which is formed when light rays passinginto (and reflecting out of) water droplets are bent at different anglesdepending on their color, so that the light separates into bands of color Theamount of refraction depends on the angle and the type of matter; refractioncan occur even when passing through different kinds of air A mirage, such asyou might see in the desert or over a patch of asphalt in the summer, occurswhen light passing through warm air meets the very hot air near the surface;reflecting the sky, it often resembles a lake

TELE has as its basic meanings “distant” or “at a distance.” A telescope is

for looking at far-off objects; a camera's telephoto lens magnifies a distant scene for a photograph; and a television lets us watch things taking place far

away

telegenic Well-suited to appear on television, especially byhaving an appearance and manner attractive to viewers

• The local anchorpeople all have telegenic faces and great hair, though theydon't always seem to know a lot about the economy or political science

The word telegenic, a blend of “television” and “photogenic,” first appeared

back in the 1930s, before hardly anyone owned a TV With the supremeimportance of TV cameras in politics, people running for political officetoday worry about being telegenic enough to have a successful career Evenevents have been described as telegenic; unfortunately, such events are oftenhuman tragedies, such as fires, earthquakes, or floods, which happen tobroadcast well and capture the interest of the viewers