Give the various races into which mankind has been divided, and the color of each.

Name every kind of tree you can think of, every kind of flower, every kind of animal, every kind of bird.

X

    SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF WORDS

You have already mastered many words, but a glance at any page of the dictionary will convince you that you have not mastered all.  Nor will you, ever.  Their number is too great, and too many of them are abstrusely technical.

Nevertheless there remain many words that you should bring into your vocabulary.  Most of them are not extremely usual; on the other hand they are not so unusual that you would encounter them but once in a lifetime.  The majority of them are familiar to you, perhaps; that is, you will have a general feeling that you have seen them before.  But this is not enough.  Do you know exactly what they mean?  Can you, when the occasion comes, use them?-use them promptly and well?  This is the test.

Many of the words are absolutely new so far as this book is concerned.  They have not been discussed or attached to any list.  Many are not entirely new.  They have appeared, but not received such emphasis that they are sure to stand fast in your memory.  Or some cognate form of them may have been mastered, yet they themselves may remain unknown.  Thus you may know commendation but not commendatory, credulous but not incredulity, invalid but not invalidate or invalidity.  One of the best of all ways to extend your vocabulary is to make each word of your acquaintance introduce you to its immediate kinsmen, those grouped with it on the same page of the dictionary.

This chapter puts you on your mettle.  Hitherto you have been given instructions as to the way to proceed, Now you must shift for yourself.  The words, to be sure, are corraled for you.  But you must tame them and break them, in order that on them you may ride the ranges of human intercourse.  If you have not yet learned how to subdue them to your will and use, it would be futile to tell you how.  You have been put in the way of mastering words.  The task that henceforth confronts you is your own.  You must have at it unaided.

It is true that, in the exercise that follows, specific help is given you on a limited number of the words.  But this help is only toward discovering the words for yourself before you have seen them in a list.  And for most of the words not even this meager assistance is given.

EXERCISE — Supplementary

Each of the following groups of words is preceded by sentences in which blanks should be filled by words from that group.  But do your best to fill these blanks properly before you consult the group at all.  You must learn to think of, or think up, the right word instead of having it pointed out to you.