{"id":1950,"date":"2014-08-27t00:17:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-27t07:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/?p=1950"},"modified":"2014-08-27t00:17:15","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27t07:17:15","slug":"skydiving-gre-sat-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/skydiving-gre-sat-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"a skydiving adventure (with bonus gre & sat vocab challenge)"},"content":{"rendered":"

the following is a true story about a few blithe magooshers who went skydiving together last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cwhat? blithe<\/i>?\u201d you may be thinking. \u201cthat\u2019s no ordinary adjective!\u201d and you\u2019d be right. it\u2019s one of the many vocabulary words you\u2019ll find on the gre, sat, and throughout the rest of this story. there are 18 of them in here — see if you can find them all!<\/b> definitions will be listed at the bottom like this:<\/p>\n

blithe<\/i> (adj.): free-spirited; carefree<\/p>\n

good luck!<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

now, as i was saying, a few blithe members of the magoosh team (namely mark, amrita, and myself) decided to jump out of a plane last weekend…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bv576xiciaaidwk\"<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

about two weeks ago, we posed the idea to the rest of the magooshers in the office, but they didn\u2019t have to deliberate long before objecting to the proposal. many had even made the lifelong decision to abjure from skydiving altogether. i mean, understandably so — you have to be a little outlandish to engage in such a deleterious activity. but we were determined to spice up our lives and avoid another lackluster weekend, so we set out on saturday to dive into the sky.<\/p>\n

we all got up in the wee hours of the morning to make the onerous two-hour trip out to the skydiving location in middle-of-nowhere byron, ca. feeling exhausted and a bit uneasy on our arrival, we warily assessed the warehouse that doubled as the headquarters for bay area skydiving — a hodgepodge of parachutes, ropes, straps, and helmets strewn about the building.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

we sat down on some tattered couches in the corner, and after about 500 \u201cinitial here\u201ds and \u201csign there\u201ds, our lives had officially been signed away and a feeling of resignation finally settled in amongst the group.<\/p>\n

\u201ci looked up some statistics online,\u201d amrita told us as we sat in our small circle of nerves and jitters, waiting for them to call our names. \u201cwe had a greater chance of dying on the way here.\u201d however, her attempt at hortation was not enough to assuage our fears — let\u2019s not forget we were a mere 15 minutes from leaping into the sky!<\/p>\n

overwhelmed, we almost cowered right there. but members of the staff quickly came to greet us and their sanguine demeanors immediately put us at ease.<\/p>\n

\u201cthey call me evil,\u201d my tandem instructor said smiling and gruffly shaking my hand. he was an eccentric guy, to be sure. sun-bleached hair and tanned, leather skin — he was the poster child for the adrenaline-junkie lifestyle \u2026 and the person who would keep me alive to see the end of the day.<\/p>\n

but his imperturbable attitude was infectious, and i soon found myself acting just as nonchalantly about the whole endeavour as he — joking and laughing along with the other instructors:<\/p>\n

\u201ceveryone i\u2019ve jumped with has survived \u2026. for the most part.\u201d<\/p>\n

as we stepped outside on the tarmac and approached the plane, they kept the jokes coming — continuing to ease our nerves, distract us from minatory sound of the whirring and rumbling jets and engines in front of us. we boarded the plane, feeling stoked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dcim103gopro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to be honest, the rest is a blur. but somehow we got from here:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dcim103gopro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2026. to here:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dcim103gopro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2026. to here:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dcim103gopro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and all i can tell you is that it. was. awesome.<\/p>\n

we survived. we had a blast. and now, i guess you could say magoosh has got some new pretty hardcore skydiving zealots.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"screen<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

who wants to go again?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

——–<\/p>\n

here are all 18 gre & sat vocab words from the story and their definitions from merriam-webster! check to see if you found them all!<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. deliberate<\/i><\/b> (v.): to think over; to think about and discuss issues carefully<\/p>\n

note: this can also act as an adjective meaning \u201cslow\u201d or \u201con purpose\u201d!<\/i><\/p>\n

2. abjure<\/i><\/b> (v.): to swear off or refrain from something<\/p>\n

3. outlandish <\/i><\/b> (adj.): crazy; bizarre; out of this world<\/p>\n

4. deleterious <\/i><\/b> (adj.): harmful; bad for your health<\/p>\n

5. lackluster <\/i><\/b> (adj.): dull; monotonous<\/p>\n

6. onerous<\/i><\/b> (adj.): requiring a lot of effort; cumbersome; burdensome<\/p>\n

7. warily — <\/i>or wary<\/i><\/b> (adj.): careful; alert<\/p>\n

8. hodgepodge<\/i><\/b> (n.): confusing mixture; jumble<\/p>\n

9. resignation<\/i><\/b> (n.): acceptance of something unpleasant that can\u2019t be avoided<\/p>\n

10. hortation<\/i> — or hortatory <\/i><\/b> (adj.): encouraging; exhorting<\/p>\n

11. assuage <\/i><\/b> (v.): to relieve or easy pain, other negative feelings<\/p>\n

12. cowered<\/i> — or cower <\/i><\/b> (v.): to shrink away from; recoil in fear<\/p>\n

13. sanguine<\/i><\/b> (adj.): upbeat; cheery; optimistic<\/p>\n

14. eccentric <\/i><\/b> (adj.): strange or unusual (usually for a person); tending to act in unusual ways<\/p>\n

15. imperturbable<\/i><\/b> (n.): marked by extreme calm, impassivity, and steadiness<\/p>\n

16. nonchalant <\/i><\/b> (adj.): cool; mellow; unconcerned<\/p>\n

17. minatory<\/i><\/b> (adj.): threatening<\/p>\n

18. zealot<\/i><\/b> (n.): fanatic<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

what happens when a few magooshers go skydiving together? they come back with a great story, full of gre and sat vocab. read on to see how well you know your vocab!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[40,41,29,42,43,44,13,22,45],"ppma_author":[495],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\na skydiving adventure (with bonus gre & sat vocab challenge) - magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/skydiving-gre-sat-challenge\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"a skydiving adventure (with bonus gre & sat vocab challenge)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"what happens when a few magooshers go skydiving together? 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