• Darlene Wagner: Vocabulary Consolidation

• • from an article by Robert F. Worth, in the New York Times, March 30, 2011, “On Libya’s Revolutionary Road.” The author visited Benghazi in the early days of the revolt; the prisons he refers to were used by Ghaddafi’s security forces.

[1]  On my second day in the city, I visited one of those prisons with a gap-toothed 28-year-old man named Osama Makhzoum. He was an unemployed accountant, well educated and disgusted by the corruption around him, who was among the first protesters on Feb. 15. He had a clownish, ____________________ smile, and he spoke in a rapid-fire stream of anecdotes and jokes that was impossible to keep up with; it was as if a decade of dammed-up words had just been unleashed.

• • from an article in the “Guardian”, January 6, 2010 about homes for Alzheimer’s patients in the UK who insist on patients being fitted with feeding tubes

[2]  There is no evidence that tube feeding prolongs life, and it deprives patients of the pleasure and social contact involved in normal eating and drinking, says a Royal College of Physicians working group which recommends that ____________________ nutrition should only be used as a last resort.

• • from the British National Corpus

[3]  The Australian government in August 1989 announced that it would carry out compulsory blood tests on potential immigrants and would in principle ____________________ all those who were HIV-infected.

• • from an article by Marc Lacey in the “New York Times”, August 11, 2009 about how Mexican prisons are controlled by the drug lords imprisoned in them.

[4]  From August through December 2008, in the most recent statistics available, state prisons across Mexico reported 36 violent episodes with 80 deaths, 162 injuries and 27 escapes, the government said. There was no breakdown in those statistics of how much of the violence was linked to traffickers, but experts said prisoners involved in the drug trade tend to be the most ____________________ and trouble-prone of all.

• • from a comment on an article in the “Guardian”, November 3, 2010 about increased student fees in the UK.

[5]  And with 10% of students not having employment 6 months after they graduate, and 40% of students not getting graduate level jobs, I have to say, that I find it hard to see the ____________________ of students being better off financially with a degree.

• • from an article in the “Independent”, December 14, 2005 about an UK attack on a black man by a white racist.

[6]  When Barton's racial taunts started, Mr Walker was anxious to defuse the situation. “We’re only waiting for the bus and then we’re going,” he said. But a bus did not stop and they heard the threat “walk, nigger, walk.” They decided to walk to another bus stop, via McGoldrick Park, where Taylor ____________________ from the bushes in the darkness. He dealt Mr Walker a single blow from behind with the axe, which police believe was among the proceeds of an earlier robbery. Mr Walker was semi prostrate when he was hit. Barton and Taylor then fled to Amsterdam.

• • from an article by Alexei Barrionuevo in the “New York Times”, October 12, 2011 about the Chilean miners who had been rescued a year earlier.

[7]  In the wake of the rescue, the miners benefited from an outpouring of sympathy and support. A Chilean mining magnate, Leonardo Farkas, gave the miners more than $15,000 each so they could rest and ____________________. He also gave free homes to two who were marrying, and he said he helped one miner find psychiatric care after the miner found his fiancée with another man.

• • from an article by Kim Severson in the “New York Times”, September 7, 2011 about an American school superintendent who was accused of allowing cheating on standardized tests.

[8]  Dr. Hall, once named as the nation's school superintendent of the year and a veteran of 40 years in tough urban districts including New York and Newark, now stands marked by the biggest standardized test cheating scandal in the country’s history. As Atlanta tries to sort fact from fiction and get back to the business of educating the 50,000 children in its public schools, Dr. Hall is left to defend her ____________________, prepare for any possible legal action and consider whether her philosophy of education and style of leadership brought her to what is the lowest point in her career.