full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Margaret Heffernan: Dare to disagree

Unscramble the Blue Letters

And she was unusual because she was really irtstneeed in a new science, the eignermg flied of epidemiology, the study of patterns in disease. But like every scientist, she appreciated that to make her mark, what she needed to do was find a hard problem and sovle it. The hard poblerm that Alice chose was the rniisg incidence of childhood cancers. Most disease is correlated with poverty, but in the case of childhood cancers, the children who were dying seemed mostly to come from affluent families. So, what, she wanted to know, could explain this anomaly?

Open Cloze

And she was unusual because she was really __________ in a new science, the ________ _____ of epidemiology, the study of patterns in disease. But like every scientist, she appreciated that to make her mark, what she needed to do was find a hard problem and _____ it. The hard _______ that Alice chose was the ______ incidence of childhood cancers. Most disease is correlated with poverty, but in the case of childhood cancers, the children who were dying seemed mostly to come from affluent families. So, what, she wanted to know, could explain this anomaly?

Solution

  1. field
  2. rising
  3. interested
  4. solve
  5. problem
  6. emerging

Original Text

And she was unusual because she was really interested in a new science, the emerging field of epidemiology, the study of patterns in disease. But like every scientist, she appreciated that to make her mark, what she needed to do was find a hard problem and solve it. The hard problem that Alice chose was the rising incidence of childhood cancers. Most disease is correlated with poverty, but in the case of childhood cancers, the children who were dying seemed mostly to come from affluent families. So, what, she wanted to know, could explain this anomaly?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
alice stewart 3
hard problem 2
conventional wisdom 2
fantastic model 2

Important Words

  1. affluent
  2. alice
  3. anomaly
  4. appreciated
  5. cancers
  6. case
  7. childhood
  8. children
  9. chose
  10. correlated
  11. disease
  12. dying
  13. emerging
  14. epidemiology
  15. explain
  16. families
  17. field
  18. find
  19. hard
  20. incidence
  21. interested
  22. mark
  23. needed
  24. patterns
  25. poverty
  26. problem
  27. rising
  28. science
  29. scientist
  30. solve
  31. study
  32. unusual
  33. wanted