UNDERSTANDING SPEECH

When someone speaks to you in your own language, your sensory, perceptual, and other
cognitive systems (1)____________ the sounds of speech in a way that (2)__________

you to detect, recognize, and understand what the person is saying. The (3)___________ may

seem effortless, but it (4)___________ amazingly (5)____________ acts of information

processing. Scientists trying to develop speech-recognition software systems have discovered how

complex the process is. After (6)___________ of effort, the (7)____________ and efficiency

of these systems are still not much better than those of the average five-year-old child. What makes understanding speech so complicated?

One (8)____________ is that the (9)_____________ features of a particular speech sound

are not always the same. The sounds of specific letters differ depending on the sounds that follow them. A second factor complicating our comprehension of speech is that each of us creates slightly

different speech sounds, even when saying the same words. (10)__________ , as people speak,

their words are not usually separated by silence, so it is often difficult to (11)__________ the

beginning and endings of words.

(12)____________ these challenges, humans can instantly recognize and understand the

words and sentences produced by almost anyone speaking a familiar language. In contrast, even
the best voice-recognition software must learn to recognize words spoken by a new voice and
even then may make many (13)____________

214 Essential Academic Vocabulary

Scientists have yet to discover all the details about how people overcome the

(14)____________ of understanding speech, but some general answers are emerging. Just as we

recognize objects by (15)___________ their visual (16)____________ , it appears that humans

(17)____________ and recognize the specific—and changing—characteristics of the sounds created

when someone speaks. Context and expectation, such as knowing the general topic of conversation,
helps us to recognize (18)___________ words that might otherwise be hard to understand.

Finally, we are often guided to an understanding of speech by nonverbal cues. The frown, the enthusiastic nod, or the bored yawn that accompanies speech—each carries information that helps us understand what the person is saying. So if someone says, "Wow, are you smart!" but

really means "I think you're a jerk," we will (19)___________ the true meaning based on the

context, facial expression, and tone of voice. No wonder it is usually easier to understand
someone in a face-to-face conversation than on the telephone or (20)___________ e-mail.

Adapted from Douglas A. Bernstein, Louis A. Penner, Alison Clarke-Stewart, and Edward J. Roy, Psychology, 6th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 294-95-

2. Synonyms

Match each word in column A with its meaning in column B.

Chapter 20 • Cumulative Review

3. Odd Word Out

Cross out the word in each group that does NOT have a similar meaning to the other three words.

1. alter, modify, justify, adjust 6. goal, validity, target, objective

2. partnership, profit, income, revenue 7. demonstration, occupation, job, task

3. center, core, comment, middle 8. series, sequence, cycle, shift

4. exterior, outside, external, explicit 9. subsequent, following, concurrent, after

5. prime, initial, parallel, first 10. debate, document, discussion, conversation

4. Word Forms in Sentences

iittl Use the correct italicized word form to meaningfully and grammatically complete the following sentences.

1. Teachers generally try to respond to the needs of their students, who learn___________ as

well as inductively.

deduction, deduce, deductive, deductively

2. Our new business will show only a___________ profit this year.

margin, marginalize, marginal, marginally

3. It is the goal of the international conference to____________ relations between dissenting

countries.

norm, normalize, normal, normalization

4. ____________ of the laws is not a valid excuse for committing crimes.

ignorance, ignore, ignorant, ignorantly

5. Research involves the___________ analysis of a hypothesis.

rationalization, rationalize, rational, rationally

6. At the____________ of her speech, Dr. Wang thanked the university president for inviting

her to speak to the graduating students.

conclusion, conclude, conclusive, conclusively

7. The professor spoke____________ about the forthcoming test and then continued with

the planned lecture.

brevity, brief, brief, briefly

8. The answers to the test questions must be written____________ and comprehensively.

coherency, cohere, coherent, coherently

9. My brother has had a____________ cold for two weeks, but he is finally starting to recover

from it.

persistence, persist, persistent, persistently

10. Increasing____________ in industry has caused many manufacturing jobs to be lost.

automation, automate, automatic, automatically

216 Essential Academic Vocabulary

Give the correct noun form for each of the following verbs.

1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

imply

memorize
subsidize _
intensify _
authorize.
illustrate _
promote _
register _
validate_

hypothesize

11. organize.

12. integrate

13. consume

14. terminate _

15. emphasize

16. locate___

17. justify___

18. publish__

19. opt______

20. generate

5. Collocations

Combine a word from column A with a word from column B to form a common collocation. Then match each two-word collocation with its definition.

Column A

instruction

traffic

passive

school

worst-case

Column B

vocabulary uniform

mail

violation consent discrimination

1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

women being paid less than men for doing the same job

secure delivery system for important letters and packages

permission from a child's mother or father

a book of directions for operating equipment

a very old culture

a birth certificate and a marriage certificate are typical examples

a police citation for speeding

knowledge of words for reading and listening

required clothes worn by some children in educational institutions

a possible serious problem that can be predicted

Chapter 20 • Cumulative Review

e. Word Parts

■h] Complete the chart with the meaning of each word part and three examples of words that contain the word part.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1678