NEF Advanced Reading: What I am really thinking about / slide 9. Write down all the unknown words.

  1. diversion — the action of turning something aside from its course.
  2. stress-out — suffering from high levels of physical or especially psychological stres
  3. adjust — to bring to a more satisfactory state
  4. to giggle — to laugh with repeated short catches of the breath
  5. go blank — to suddenly stop showing letters, images, etc.
  6. harrowing — acutely distressing or painful

Lexis in Context, slide 9, ex. e

e. Look at the highlighted phrasal verbs and idioms and guess the meaning of the ones you don’t know from the context. Then match them to the definitions 1-8.

  1. look down on — think they are better than sb / sth
  2. breaks my heart — makes me very upset
  3. keep up with — move or make progress at the same rate as sb / sth
  4. does my head in — (informal) makes me annoyed
  5. gets wearing — becomes exhausting
  6. life or death — vitally important
  7. build up — get bigger
  8. go blank — can’t think what to do or say