[Course Forum] SAT Comprehensive by jonny

Community-Created Courses English (American)
62

Hi.

Now I have written the first draft of new definitions for words that I find confusing. It become 409 words. Still I have a lot more words to clarify, but that would be a next phase.

Next, I will review every single definitions that I wrote, so I can find mistake and also smooth away differences between early writing and recent writing. After I have done that, maybe we should have public review period. In order to do that we need to find a way to attract attention.

But before going further, I want correct obvious mistake from “Suspicious Items”. This time I will fix definition too. I will post detail about this tomorrow.

63

Hi.

Here is the items I intend to fix next.

I have thought about “unctuous” and “scurrilous” which duaal mention:

  • “unctuous”: I think current difinition is roughly in line with Webster, Oxford, Cambridge dictionaries.
  • “scurrilous”: I think this is also roughly in line with Webster, Oxford, Cambridge dictionaries.

I want more detailed explanation about them. In the mean time, I have added them to “Suspicious Items”.

64

Helo, everyone.

I have written new definitions for Definition Error that I mentioned yesterday.

Unless there isn’t objections, I will update the database a week later (1/24).

65

Hello.

I find a few PoS error and a lot of typos.

I put them to Suspicious Items. Fix on PoS error (“manliness”, “pliy”) will be included in 1/24’s update. I will deal with typos later.

66

Hi stream_nine90,

Sorry for my late response. Your new definitions in Definition Error look good.

I do think though the definition for pastiche could be a bit broader. Adapted from the Oxford definition: artistic work in a style that imitates another work, artist, or period.

And I think recure should be removed from the course. In Merriam-Webster it is listed as obsolete, Oxford and Cambridge do not even list it.

67

Hello.

Wellcome back duaal.
Ok, then I exclude “pastiche” and “recure” from today’s update. We will reconsider them as target of next update.

68

Hi.

I have updated the database with today’s updates.

Here are last minute changes:

  • postpone “pastiche” and “recure” for duaal’s request.
  • postpone “despond” and “dejection”, because I think “despond”'s definition should reflect hopelessness
  • fix PoS error on “reclusory”: adjective -> noun
  • add countable or uncountable as noun’s extra information attribute.
69

Hello.

I have reconsidered items that had postponed last update and I also draft fixes for the typos.

About “pastiche”, I can guess but does not clealy understand duaal’s point. So please explain to me especially 1. what is the difference 2. why is that difference siginificant.

Unless there is an objection, I will update the database a week later (2/2)

70

Hi stream_nine90,

The spelling corrections all look good.

Definitions pastiche:

  1. artistic work that intentionally imitate someone else’s style.
  2. artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period.

Comparing:

  1. Implies the imitation of just one person’s artistic style. (Also the definition has a small conjugation error: should be imitates.)
  2. The imitation can be of the style of one artist,
    but also of a whole style period or of just one artistic work. So this definition is broader.

Do you want to add countable/uncountable for all nouns? I would prefer to add only uncountable when appropiate.

71

Hello.

pastiche

Now, I understand your point. Apparently I unnecessarily narrow the nuance.

countable/uncountable

There are 3 patterns (countable, uncountable, countable / uncountable). uncountable or nothing can only express two of them. What to do about that?

72

I don’t know. It is not a major issue for me. Just a bit worried about providing too much information on the screen.

73

Hi.

It is something oneyedananas brings to the discussion.

My thinking is “verb has transitive / intransitive on attribute. Why doesn’t noun have countable / uncountable?” I don’t know having them is good for vocabulary building but I don’t think thay cause any harm. And it doesn’t cause much trouble for editing database.

Items that I updated so far are already on my daily review session, and I am not distracted by them. Are you?

74

I’m not sure I encountered them yet. My focus is on learning in my German and Spanish courses and I’m still in the early levels of this course.

75

Hello all.

I have applied updates that I drafted a week ago.
The definition of “pastiche” is postponed to the next update.

76

Hello, everyone.

I have finished first self-review of the Confusing Word.
As a result, I have edited around 150 items since 1/18.
That is around 35% of all items in the first draft.
For some items, I have confidence now. But for some I don’t have it yet.
As a next step, I intend to review all items one more time and pick items that I am confident, then gradually release them on weekly basis as we have done for mistake corrections.

77

Hi.

Here is the first round of Confusing World release candidates. I want release them a week later (2018/2/20).

Aside of definitions, I have slightly changed the use of attributes.
We used to put every grammatical note except part of speech in “Additional Information” column, typically separated by comma. Since we can create as much as column we need (with administrator’s help) I think we don’t need to be stingy about them. So far we need two of them. One is “transitive or intransitive” for verbs “countable / uncountable” for nouns. Since we don’t put multiple PoS in one item I think it is safe to share it by them. Another is for “formal”, “literal”, “archaic”, “medical”… that sort of things. So far I haven’t encounter item which has multiple of them. We can increse an attribute if that happens.

I am still not convinced the idea that putting synonyms on the atrribute, mainly because 1. it needs to be in a more visible place than an attribute 2. synonym is a relation, not an attribute of the word.

Listing synonyms in definition become wierd when item has more than three of them. When list of synoynms become longer than the definition, it is pretty ugly.

We are using synonym as a hint to distinguish similar words. Therefore it doesn’t need to be synonyms as long as it can provide sufficient hint to disambiguate confusing definitions. For example providing first letter and number of letters, like [d-----], would be a way to do it.

Also, hints might make multiple selection test look ridiculous. We need to think about that too.

So I haven’t made up mind around synonym situation yet.
Any thought?

78

Hi @stream_nine90,

Some remarks about the new definitions in the latest Confusing Words list.

  • sobriquet - nickname; alias
    just nickname as a definition would be enough for me.
    alias is not really a good synonym because a sobriquet is chosen for you by other people, an alias you make up yourself.

  • distinction - difference between two similar things
    It can be about differences between multiple things, not necessarily two.

  • dichotomy - difference between two opposite things
    This word literally means “division into two”. I would like to keep the word “division” in the definition.

  • coincident - happening at the same space or time
    Maybe add “especially unrelated events”.
    See synonym discussion of Coincident Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

  • reproduction
    Maybe add “(biology) the production of offspring”.

I still prefer to put synonyms in the attribute field in order to keep to the definitions clear and orderly.

In the meantime I’ve continued adding audio to the words. The first 13 levels of the course are filled with audio now.

79

Hi all

I have updated the release candidate of Confusing Words as you suggested.

Really? When I tried that months ago, it was pretty confusing if attributes become like this:

(adjective) (archaic) (antiquated)

In this instance “archaic” is attribute, “antiquated” is synonym.
To avoid that kind of confusion it needs to be like this:

(adjective) (archaic) (synonym: antiquated)

And I haven’t tried this but if number of synonyms become four or five, it becomes like this:

(adjective) (synonym: gigantic, enormous, massive, immense titanic)

My second counter argument is visibility. Since attribute has smaller font. it is easy to ignore them. I spend only a few second per item during review sessions. I don’t want decisive information to be buried among other attributes. PoS is also very important, but it is easy to spot because it always (unless PoS is in the definition) exist at left most position. I wish we could put a color on certain attributes. That would alleviate the situation.

Ideally, it is best if we have separate column (not attribute) dedicated for synonym, which always displayed during learning/reviewing. We can create extra column that is always displayed, but it is displayed only *after" we answer the question. That defeats the purpose.

But we have to work with what we have.

80

Hello everyone.

I have released updates on Confusing Words that I posted a week ago.
It is a day behind the schedule because I was a little busy.
I intent to comment on duaal’s audios after I heard them all but it is also behind of schedule. Sorry about that.

81

Hello.

I have heard all audio duaal have done so far.
Overall sounds good.

Only one item that I find odd is male voice of “circuitous” in level 3. It sounds like putting stress on the first syllable.

Edit: I forgot one more item.“acquiesce” in level 1 have two same male voice.