Use a dictionary to find or check the answers to these questions. (They are all based on the above passage).

1 How do you pronounce : issue, aquatic, dead, precious, thoroughly?

2 What does degradation mean?

3 What part of speech is bilious?

4 What part of speech is enough?

5 Harm and purity are both nouns, but what type of noun are they?

6 What letter is silent (= not pronounced ) in the words: doubt, hour, half, sign?

7 What prepositions are used after the verb talk?

8 What is the opposite of generosity?

9 What is the opposite of furious?

10 What is the difference between emission, effluent and dumping?

11 What does must mean: permission, obligation or advice?

12 What syllable is stressed in effort?

13 Homework is a compound noun. Find ten compound nouns in the passage.

14 Presence is a noun, but what is the verb with the same meaning?

8.9 Find all the words from the text connected with each of these topics:

8.10 Read the factfile and answer the questions:

1 Which fact do you find the most surprising?

2 Which fact arouses the most optimism?

Factfile

Lake Baikal is the most ancient lake on the earth, it's great age is more than 25 million years. So, it is the oldest body of fresh water.

It is the deepest lake, measuring 1,635 metres from top to bottom, more than a mile.

It holds one-fifth of the planet's fresh water and 80 per cent of the former Soviet Union's – more water than all of North America's Great Lakes combined.

Baikal extends for 635 kilometres from north-east to south-west, covering the area of 30,500 square kilometres.

Baikal sits in the planet's deepest land depression. Its depression formed of hard, fixed rocks holds 23,000 cu km of chemically very pure and extraordinary clear water.

Its cold waters move vertically, carrying oxygen to the bottom, where 1,500 endemic species were spotted. Lake Tahoe has two endemic species, Lake Superior – four endemic species.

Fifty-two species of fish inhabit these waters.

Baikal owes its longevity to the tectonically active rift it occupies, which may cause it to widen by as much as 2,5 centimetres each year.

The Buryat – ethnic Mongols – settled its shores long before the 13^th century conquests of Genghis Khan. Russian fur traders arrived in the 1640s.

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1786