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From the Ted Talk by Aimee Mullins: The opportunity of adversity

Unscramble the Blue Letters

This year we celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, and it was 150 yaers ago, when witnirg about evolution, that Darwin illustrated, I think, a truth about the human character. To paraphrase: It's not the strongest of the species that survives, nor is it the most illentneigt that survives; it is the one that is most atbaapdle to change. Conflict is the genesis of creation. From Darwin's work, amongst others, we can recognize that the human ability to survive and flourish is driven by the struggle of the human spirit through conflict into taiormftorsnan. So, again, transformation, adaptation, is our greatest hamun skill. And, perhaps, until we're tested, we don't know what we're made of. Maybe that's what adversity gives us: a snsee of self, a sense of our own power. So, we can give ourselves a gift. We can re-imagine ardvtesiy as something more than just tough times. Maybe we can see it as change. Adversity is just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.

Open Cloze

This year we celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, and it was 150 _____ ago, when _______ about evolution, that Darwin illustrated, I think, a truth about the human character. To paraphrase: It's not the strongest of the species that survives, nor is it the most ___________ that survives; it is the one that is most _________ to change. Conflict is the genesis of creation. From Darwin's work, amongst others, we can recognize that the human ability to survive and flourish is driven by the struggle of the human spirit through conflict into ______________. So, again, transformation, adaptation, is our greatest _____ skill. And, perhaps, until we're tested, we don't know what we're made of. Maybe that's what adversity gives us: a _____ of self, a sense of our own power. So, we can give ourselves a gift. We can re-imagine _________ as something more than just tough times. Maybe we can see it as change. Adversity is just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.

Solution

  1. transformation
  2. intelligent
  3. writing
  4. adversity
  5. human
  6. years
  7. sense
  8. adaptable

Original Text

This year we celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, and it was 150 years ago, when writing about evolution, that Darwin illustrated, I think, a truth about the human character. To paraphrase: It's not the strongest of the species that survives, nor is it the most intelligent that survives; it is the one that is most adaptable to change. Conflict is the genesis of creation. From Darwin's work, amongst others, we can recognize that the human ability to survive and flourish is driven by the struggle of the human spirit through conflict into transformation. So, again, transformation, adaptation, is our greatest human skill. And, perhaps, until we're tested, we don't know what we're made of. Maybe that's what adversity gives us: a sense of self, a sense of our own power. So, we can give ourselves a gift. We can re-imagine adversity as something more than just tough times. Maybe we can see it as change. Adversity is just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human ability 3
human spirit 3
open doors 2
opened doors 2
remember meeting 2
medical school 2
case study 2

Important Words

  1. ability
  2. adaptable
  3. adaptation
  4. adapted
  5. adversity
  6. birthday
  7. celebrate
  8. change
  9. character
  10. charles
  11. conflict
  12. creation
  13. darwin
  14. driven
  15. evolution
  16. flourish
  17. genesis
  18. gift
  19. give
  20. greatest
  21. human
  22. illustrated
  23. intelligent
  24. power
  25. recognize
  26. sense
  27. skill
  28. species
  29. spirit
  30. strongest
  31. struggle
  32. survive
  33. survives
  34. tested
  35. times
  36. tough
  37. transformation
  38. truth
  39. work
  40. writing
  41. year
  42. years