Lesson 10
Word List
Study the words below. Then do the exercises for the lesson.
ambition
auction
coast
current
frail
intelligent
novel
resident
starve
volunteer
Ambition is a strong wish to be good at something or to have something. Clare’s
ambition was to dive into the pool without making a splash.
An auction is a public sale. Each item is sold to the person who offers the most money.
At the auction, Peter’s uncle bought a maple desk.
A coast is the land beside the sea. After we reached the coast, we walked a long way on
the beach.
To coast is to move without power or effort. Gabriella and Lucy quickly pedaled their
bikes to the top of the hill and then coasted down the other side.
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A current is a flow of air, water, or electricity. The lifeguard told us not to swim to the
middle of the river, because the current there was very strong.
Current means being of the present time. Is Caroline's current address 7 Elm Street or
did she move?
Frail means weak, not very strong. Nomar looked frail when I visited him in the
hospital after his operation.
Intelligent means able to learn, think, and understand quickly and easily. In our science
book, we are reading some stories that show how intelligent dolphins are.
A novel is a long story about people and events that are imagined by the author. Have
you read any novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder?
Novel means new and different. In 1990, the Internet was a novel way to find
information.
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A resident is a person who lives in a certain place. May we go to this beach to swim or
is it for the residents of the town only?
To starve is to be very hungry or to suffer because of not eating any food. The farmers
want to bring hay to the animals trapped by the flood before they starve.
A volunteer is a person who offers to do a job, usually without pay. Marco, who is a
volunteer in our class, helps Mrs. Stevens with the art projects.
To volunteer is to choose to do something or to give help. Cathy volunteered to help in
the library on Thursday mornings.
Be Wordly Wise
Words that sound the same but have different spellings and different meanings are
called homophones. Current and currant are an example. A currant is a small red or
black sour berry that is used to make jams and jellies. A currant is also a small
raisin with no seeds that is used in baking. Meylin chose red currant jelly to put on
her toast, and I selected peach jam.
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Exercise 1
Words and Their Meanings
Look at the group of words on the left. Then circle the letter of the word on the right
that has the same meaning.
1. someone who lives in a place
resident
(a) auction
(b) coast
(c) current
(d)
2. a sale to the person paying the most (a) volunteer (b) novel (c) auction (d) ambition
3. taking place now (a) current
(b) intelligent (c) novel
4. a need to be very good at something
volunteer
5. able to understand quickly
coast
(a) novel
(a) frail
(d) frail
(b) ambition
(b) novel
(c) coast (d)
(c) intelligent (d)
Now look at the word on the left. Then circle the letter of the group of words on the
right that has the same meaning.
6. volunteer (a) offer to help
closely
7. coast
(b) change direction
(a) stop without warning
(b) reverse position
(c) move without using effort
8. starve
(a) put money away
(c) waste time
9. novel
10. frail
(d) return to starting place
(b) be without food for a long time
(d) be without sleep for a long time
(a) kind and gentle
(b) timid and quiet
(c) slow and painful
(d) new and unusual
(a) not easy
(c) turn away (d) look
(b) not nice (c) not strong
(d) not open
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Exercise 2
Seeing Connections
Look at each group of words below. Three of the words are alike or related in some
way. One word does not belong in the group. Find the word that does not fit and
circle it.
1. give
offer
volunteer
invent
2. novel
poem
author
3. auction
desk
chair
4. now
present
future
5. visitor
resident guest
story
table
current
tourist
Exercise 3
Applying Meanings
Circle the letter of the correct answer to each question below. Circle one letter only.
1. Which of the following can help you become more intelligent?
(a) eating
(b) sleeping
(c) reading
(d) forgetting
2. Which of the following can coast?
(a) a flagpole
(b) a bicycle (c) a cheese sandwich (d) a horse
3. Which of the following might be a person's ambition?
(a) to pack a lunch
(b) to take a nap
(c) to water the plants (d) to climb mountains
4. Which of the following could cause animals to starve?
(a) not enough food
exercise
(b) not enough water (c) too much heat
(d) too much
5. When are you most likely to be frail?
(a) when you are exercising
(b) when you are reading
(c) when you are eating (d) when you are sick
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Story
Read the story below and then answer the questions that follow it.
You might think cowboys round up wild horses only in the movies. But there is an
island near Virginia where this really happens. Let us explore Assateague [as-sateeg] and learn about its famous wild horses.
What are wild horses doing there? Some say they first arrived on the island in the
1500s, when a Spanish ship was wrecked in the Atlantic Ocean and the horses on
board swam ashore. Others say that is just a story. What we do know for certain is
that they have been on the island for hundreds of years. There are no other
residents.
Assateague horses do not grow very big. Most are the size of a pony. Perhaps that is
because there are not many kinds of plants to eat on the island. The horses live
mostly on marsh grass, which is quite salty. They also feed on seaweed and even
poison ivy. The amount of salt they take in causes them to drink twice as much
water as other horses. This makes them look rather fat around the middle.
The island of Assateague is not very big. If the number of horses grows too large, there
is not enough grass for all of the animals. Then some of them could starve. To
make sure this does not happen, the people on the nearby island of Chincoteague
[shin-ka-teeg] came up with an idea to help the horses. Chincoteague is between
Assateague and the Virginia coast. Its firefighters, who are all volunteers, hold a
summer roundup of the horses and then sell them. This helps to control the number
of horses and also raises money for their fire department.
The roundup usually takes place on the last Wednesday of July. The firefighters go to
Assateague to collect as many of the horses as they can. A vet then examines each
one to make sure they are healthy. Those that are too young or too frail stay on the
island. The rest of the horses are driven into the water. They have to swim across
the narrow channel to Chincoteague, which is about a hundred yards away. The
roundup takes place in July because the sea is calm. The animals do not need to
struggle against a strong current.
The horses swim ashore and spend the night penned up in the center of the town. The
next day there is an auction. Up to eighty animals might be sold. Then, the ones
that do not sell swim back to Assateague for another year. Usually, people pay
about two thousand dollars for one of the horses. The new owners like these
animals because they are intelligent and easy to train. Young children enjoy riding
them because of their small size.
Many people first heard of these creatures by reading a novel by Marguerite Henry
called Misty of Chincoteague. It came out in 1947 and tells the story of Paul and
Maureen Beebe, two children who have one great ambition. They want to own one
of the wild horses that run free on Assateague. To discover how they find Misty,
the horse of their dreams, and how they get the money to buy her, you have to read
the book.
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Answer each of the following questions with a sentence.
1. What details in the story suggest that the people of Chincoteague have been
successful in their ambition to keep the wild horses from going hungry?
2. Why would the new owners be happy to have an intelligent horse?
3. What is the name of the large body of water off the Virginia coast?
4. What do you know about the residents of Assateague Island?
5. What might cause the wild horses on Assateague to starve?
6. What novel idea did the people of Chincoteague have for controlling the number of
wild horses?
7. Which people volunteer to take part in the summer roundup?
8. How are frail horses kept back from the sale?
9. How do you know that the horses will not be swept away by a strong current as they
swim from one island to the other?
10. How is the money from the auction used?
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Hidden Message
In the boxes next to each sentence, write the word that is missing from the sentence. Put
one letter in each box. All the words are from Lesson 10. If you spell correctly, the
shaded boxes will answer the following riddle:
I have many little holes, yet I can be filled with water and none of it will leak. What am
I?
---Refer to boxes on page 81
1. Koala bears must have the right leaves to eat or they will
2. Along the
of Jamaica, you will find many fine beaches.
3. This summer, Xia's
4. We need another
5. What is your
is to learn to swim.
to work on the school play.
telephone number?
6. Watch this trick and you will see how
our dog Frisky is.
7. After reading this story, I will begin a
.
.
8. To sell all of the furniture, we will have an
.
9. Right after it was born, the baby elephant seemed
10. Last year, Sheila became a
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aboard 1
adult 6
aloft 1
ambition 10
arch 4
astronomer 2
atlas 3
attention 4
attract 9
auction 10
award 4
aware 3
base 7
besides 2
blast 1
boar 3
bustle 5
cautious 1
channel 5
clump 6
of Florida.
.
coast 10
collapse 4
connect 5
crater 2
crew 9
curious 6
current 10
cylinder 8
dangle 9
degree 2
demolish 4
diameter 2
din 7
discard 7
dome 7
drift 9
empire 5
equator 3
event 9
examine 8
excess 4
fang 3
fatal 8
feature 8
fierce 3
frail 10
gallon 7
gaze 2
girder 1
grasp 8
gratitude 6
gravity 2
herd 6
hoof 3
instrument 7
intelligent 10
invent 1
jet 8
journey 3
launch 9
local 3
luxury 7
mallet 7
marine 8
mention 5
newcomer 6
novel 10
opposite 9
outline 4
peak 5
plain 6
rare 3
reflect 2
resident 10
reverse 9
rotate 1
scar 8
scholar 5
sculpture 4
settle 5
signal 9
skill 7
slight 7
spade 4
stalk 6
starve 10
steer 9
story 1
strand 1
telescope 2
tentacle 8
tower 1
tusk 6
universe 2
utensil 4
vehicle 5
vessel 8
volunteer 10
wealthy 6
zigzag 5