It is easy to confuse empathy with sympathy, but the concepts are different in two important ways. First, sympathy means you feel compassion for another person's predicament, whereas empathy means you have a personal sense of what that predicament is like. Consider the difference between sympathizing with an unwed mother or a homeless person and empathizing with them—imagining what it would be

like to be in their position. When you sympathize, it is the other's confusion, joy, or pain. When you empathize, the experience becomes your own, at least for the moment. Empathy is different from sympathy in a second way. We sympathize only when we accept the reasons for another's pain as valid, whereas it's possible to empathize without feeling sympathy. You can empathize with a difficult relative, a rude stranger, and even a criminal without feeling much sympathy for them. Empathizing allows you to understand another person's motives without requiring you to agree with them. After empathizing you will almost certainly understand them better, but sympathy won't always follow. Neither sympathy nor empathy is identical to the "I know how you feel" type of response that some people offer when faced with another's expression of emotion. Hearing someone else's account—of falling in love or losing a job, for example—might remind you of a similar experience, but it is highly unlikely that your experience matched his or hers. Furthermore, an "I know how you feel" response can be interpreted as a conversational "take-away" in which you disregard the other person's story and begin telling yours. There is no consistent evidence that suggests that the ability to empathize is better for one sex or the other. Some people, however, seem to have a hereditary capacity for greater empathizing than do others. Studies of identical and fraternal twins indicate that identical female twins are more similar to one another in their ability to empathize than are fraternal twins. Interestingly, there seems to be no difference between male twins. Although empathy may have a biological basis, the role of environment can still play an important role. For example, parents who are sensitive to their children's feelings tend to have children who also are sensitive to the feelings of others. In the first paragraph, the word predicament means

a. the ability to predict.
b. lack of concern for others.
c. a problem or difficulty.
d. a preference.


C

Language Arts & World Languages

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Complete lo siguiente, usando el equivalente español de las palabras que aparecen entre paréntesis.

______________ Rojas gana ______________ dólares por semana. (Mrs. / a thousand)

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¿Qué te gusta hacer?  Your Colombian friend Catalina asks you questions about your leisure activities.Answer the following questions in complete sentences. ¿Ves muchas películas en el cine?

What will be an ideal response?

Language Arts & World Languages

Choose the lifestyle from the lexique that goes best with the description.



Modèle: Michele s’occupe des enfants et nettoie souvent la maison.
C’est une femme au foyer.

1. Marc fait de la gym tous les jours.

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2. Antoine passe beaucoup de temps dans les grands magasins.

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3. Simone va souvent aux concerts et elle adore The Grateful Dead.

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4. Claude est vieux et a beaucoup de temps libre.

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Whenever possible, use your own equipment because

A. Murphy’s Law always seems to apply to other people’s equipment B. it looks more impressive to bring your own equipment C. it takes up more time while you set up so you speak less D. while you are setting up, you can banter with the audience to reduce your nervousness

Language Arts & World Languages