МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ
РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ
ВЛАДИВОСТОКСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ
УНИВЕРСИТЕТ ЭКОНОМИКИ И СЕРВИСА
МЯСНИКОВА С. В., ГРИГОРЬЕВА М.Б.,
УТКИНА С.А.
«Читаем научно-популярные тексты»
УЧЕБНОЕ ПОСОБИЕ
Владивосток
Издательство ВГУЭС
2011
ББК
Рецензенты: Федько Л.А., кандидат педагогических наук, доцент
кафедры иностранных языков ДВФУ
Прошьянц Н.А., канд. педагогических наук, профессор
кафедры иностранных языков ТОВМИ имени С.О. Макарова ВУНЦ
ВМФ «ВМА»
М 99 АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК: ЧИТАЕМ НАУЧНО-ПОПУЛЯРНЫЕ
ТЕКСТЫ: учебное пособие / сост. Мясникова С.В., Григорьева М.Б.,
Уткина С.А. – Владивосток: Изд-во ВГУЭС,2011.- 154 с.
Учебное пособие по домашнему чтению «Английский язык:
Читаем научно-популярные тексты» включает научно-популярные
тексты и
разработанные к ним упражнения и задания, которые
направлены на расширение и закрепление лексики, развитие навыков
чтения и перевода аутентичных текстов, а также развитие навыков
устной речи.
Предназначено для аудиторной и самостоятельной работы
студентов языковых специальностей
Печатается по решению РИСО ВГУЭС
2
©
Издательство Владивостокского
государственного университета
экономики и сервиса, 2011
ВВЕДЕНИЕ
Данное учебное пособие представляет собой сборник текстов и
упражнений для студентов языковых специальностей специальностей
030701.65
«Международные отношения» и
032301.65
«Регионоведение США и Канады», изучающих дисциплину «Домашнее
чтение»
Цель пособия - расширение активного и пассивного лексического
запаса студентов, развитие у студентов навыков чтения научнопопудярных тексов и формирование навыков устной речи на
английском языке на базе разработанной в пособии
системы
упражнений и заданий.
Данное пособие состоит из 10 разделов: Man and Nature, Ecology,
Education and Language, Historical wonders, Physiology and Diseases, Law,
Interesting facts, Political and Economic Issues, Some social issues and
Cloning.
Каждый раздел включает в себя тексты и задания к ним
,рассчитанные на двухчасовое занятие. Задания предполагают работу с
текстами, предварительное знакомство с которыми должно являться
домашним заданием студентов.
Каждое задание включает в себя:
-список активных слов и выражений,
-блок упражнений различной степени сложности для тренировки и
закрепления вводимой лексики,
-блок упражнений к тексту, которые включают в себя задания для
контроля прочитанного
- блок упражнений для построения подготовленных и
неподготовленных устных и письменных высказываний.
В процессе работы по данному пособию рекомендуется работа как
со всеми включенными в данное пособие упражнениями, так и с
отдельными блоками (в зависимости от языкового уровня студентов и
целей занятия).
Пособие предназначен для студентов специальностей, изучающих
английский язык углубленно, но может быть также использован для
студентов переводческих специальностей.
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Материал пособия
апробирован на кафедре межкультурных
коммуникаций и переводоведения ИИЯ ВГУЭС.
MAN AND NATURE
Text 1
Global Warming
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Polar bears could face extinction, whales go hungry, and seals have
nowhere to rest—all because of the warming. On a frigid afternoon in
May, I slipped through a crack in the sea ice and dropped into the Arctic
Ocean. The icy water hit my face and neoprene-clad head. I was diving just
south of Lancaster Sound, off the northern tip of Baffin Island in the
Canadian Arctic. The water was 29 degrees (-2єC), about as cold as sea water
gets before it freezes. My breath slowed and I swam down into the blackness.
At one point I looked back up at the ice, expecting it to appear as it most
often does this early in the season—blue, featureless, lifeless. But something
wasn't right.
The ice was stained green and brown. It moved. I blinked and checked
my depth. I tried to make sure I wasn't suffering vertigo, which can be deadly
to a diver working alone under the three-foot-thick (one meter) roof of ice.
Then it hit me: It wasn't ice at all—I was watching a massive cloud of
amphipods, tiny shrimp like crustaceans, as they fed on phytoplankton that
grow on the underside of the ice in spring when the sun returns to the Arctic.
I was seeing the foundation of the ecosystem, the combination of ice and
minute life-forms upon which all the bigger animals—polar bears, whales,
birds, and seals—depend.
I've lived in the Canadian Arctic all my life and have spent most of my
career photographing the edge where ice meets open sea. When I began
working, sea ice seemed invulnerable: Even in the warmest months much ice
remained. Ice is not just a landscape. It is part of the biology of every
creature that lives in this frozen vastness. Year-round, but especially in
spring, polar bears roam and hunt on the ice. Seals rest and give birth on the
ice. Massive bowhead whales arrive to feed on amphipods and copepods.
Beluga whales and narwhals join them and chase arctic cod, which hide in
finger-thin channels of ice. An Arctic without ice is unimaginable.
Scarcely ten years later, things have changed. The Poles are melting at
an alarming rate; as global warming grinds on, the possibility of an ice-free
Arctic, at least during the summer, creeps closer each day. Some scientists
even believe the Arctic will be void of summer ice, dooming species such as
polar bears to extinction in less than a century. This is one of the most
disturbing predictions I've heard. One thing I understood with sudden clarity
that May day as I watched amphipods flit along the ice and heard the clicks
and squeaks of approaching whales: If global temperatures continue rising,
the ice will likely disappear. An Arctic without ice would be like a garden
without soil.
What Is Global Warming?
Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising and wildlife is scrambling to
keep pace. It's becoming clear that humans have caused most of the past
century's warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern
5
lives. Called greenhouse gases (GHGs), their levels are higher now than in
the last 650,000 years.
SEE HOW IT WORKS
We call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to
the Earth's climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to
place. As the Earth spins each day, the new heat swirls with it, picking up
moisture over the oceans, rising here, settling there. It's changing the rhythms
of climate that all living things have come to rely upon. What will we do to
slow this warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set
into motion?
Greenhouse effect
The "greenhouse effect" is the warming that happens when certain gases
in Earth's atmosphere trap heat. These gases let in light but keep heat from
escaping, like the glass walls of a greenhouse.
First, sunlight shines onto the Earth's surface, where it is absorbed and
then radiates back into the atmosphere as heat. In the atmosphere,
“greenhouse” gases trap some of this heat, and the rest escapes into space.
The more greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere, the more heat gets
trapped.
Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since 1824, when
Joseph Fourier calculated that the Earth would be much colder if it had no
atmosphere. This greenhouse effect is what keeps the Earth's climate livable.
Without it, the Earth's surface would be an average of about 60 degrees
Fahrenheit cooler. In 1895, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius discovered
that humans could enhance the greenhouse effect by making carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas.
Levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have gone up and down over the
Earth's history, but they have been fairly constant for the past few thousand
years. Global average temperatures have stayed fairly constant over that time
as well, until recently. Through the burning of fossil fuels and other GHG
emissions, humans are enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming Earth.
Other factors briefly influence global temperatures. Volcanic eruptions, for
example, emit particles that temporarily cool the Earth's surface. But these
have no lasting effect beyond a few years. Now, humans have increased the
amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than a third since the
industrial revolution.
Why is this a concern?
The rapid rise in greenhouse gases is a problem because it is changing
the climate faster than some living things may be able to adapt. Now, with
concentrations of greenhouse gases rising, Earth's remaining ice sheets (such
as Greenland and Antarctica) are starting to melt too. The extra water could
potentially raise sea levels significantly. As the mercury rises, the climate can
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change in unexpected ways. In addition to sea levels rising, weather can
become more extreme. This means more intense major storms, more rain
followed by longer and drier droughts (a challenge for growing crops),
changes in the ranges in which plants and animals can live, and loss of water
supplies that have historically come from glaciers. Scientists are already
seeing some of these changes occurring more quickly than they had expected.
I. Vocabulary list
to blink
crustaceans
droughts
frigid
to grind on
mercury
to release
to spin
soil
to trap
featureless
to be void of
to doom
to enhance
glaciers
invulnerable
minute
to scramble
to stain
to swirl
emission
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
word expressions and use them in the sentences of your own.
Проскользнуть сквозь трещину, дыхание замедлилось, окраситься,
может быть смертельным, питаться чем-то, зависеть от чего-то,
обрекать на вымирание, отчетливо понимать, цепляться за жизнь,
ловить тепло, временно охлаждать, случаться быстрее, чем ожидали.
Ex.2 Match the words from the text with the following definitions.
 Without any qualities or noticeable characteristics
 To shut and open eyes quickly
 Al the plants and living creatures in a particular area
 The feeling of dizziness and fear
 Creatures with a soft body and a hard outer shell
 Extremely small
 A large mass of ice
 To turn round and round
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
To move around with a circular movement
Ex.3 Translate the sentences into Russian.
1.Their marriage was doomed from the start, she married him for
money. 2.The plane was spinning out of control. 3. She sat by the window
spinning. 4.A long skirt swirled around her ankles. 5.Shoppers were
scrambling to get the best bargains. 6.Alcohol seemed to have scrambled
his brain. 7.She remembered the accident in the minutest details. 8.She burst
into tears, releasing all her pent-up emotions. 9.The new building
programme will go ahead as soon as the government releases the funds. 10.
The pain was caused by a trapped nerve.
Ex.4 Translate the sentences into English paying attention to your active
vocabulary.
1.Сок от ягод окрасил пальцы в синий цвет. 2. Это прекрасный
шанс улучшить репутацию фирмы на мировом рынке. 3. Внутри
горящего здания они оказались как в ловушке. 4. Похоже, собирается
дождь. На небе нет ни одной звездочки. 5.Её дыхание замедлилось и
она наконец-то заснула. 6. Качество преподавания английского зависит
от количества учеников в классе? 7. Она вдруг отчетливо поняла, что
все это случилось быстрее, чем она ожидала. 8.Стоит жаркая и сухая
погода. Долгая засуха может погубить урожай.
Ex.5 Explain the meaning of the following words and word expressions
in English
To trap, to absorb, to enhance, carbon dioxide, vertigo, greenhouse gases
(GHGs), droughts.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions
1.What was unusual in the ice that day?
2. Why is the Arctic unimaginable without ice?
3. Why do some scientists believe that the Arctic will be void of summer
ice?
4. Explain what is “greenhouse effect”?
5. What influenced global temperature?
6. Why is the rapid rise in greenhouse gases a great problem for
everyone?
7. What can help us to stop global warming?
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Ex.2 Express your viewpoint on the problem of global warming (using
your active vocabulary) as if you are
1. an Eskimo
2. a scientist
3. a member of Wild World Fund
Ex.3 Express your own attitude to the problem of global warming in
writing (12-15 sentences).
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Text 2
Irrigation catastrophes
Irrigation catastrophes have befallen civilizations since the dawn of
time. Archaeological evidence suggests that much of the Sahara was once a
green and pleasant land until depletion of groundwater turned it into desert.
The Maya civilization in Mexico is thought to have ended because of a
sudden drought. In what is now Arizona, Hohokam Indians developed a
remarkably sophisticated irrigation system. But too much irrigation waterlogs
the ground and when the water evaporates it leaves salts behind. Just such a
lethal salinization seems to have overtaken the Hohokam who died out
suddenly in the early 15th century. Researchers maintain that, with the single
exception of Egypt, no civilization based on irrigation has survived for long
either because the water has run out or because of silt or salinization.
Yet it is modern engineering that has made possible irrigation disasters
on a massive scale. One of the examples is the Aral Sea, once the world's
fourth-biggest inland sea. The two rivers that feed the Aral, the Amu Darya
and the Syr Darya, were diverted to irrigate cotton crops in the near-desert
terrain of central Asia. The Aral soon started to dry up. Since 1960 it has
shrunk by three-quarters in volume and almost all the fish have died out. A
once-thriving fishing fleet that had supported several villages has
disappeared. Moreover, rapidly rising salinity has killed many crops.
The history of the American west is another example of overexploitation
of limited water resources mainly for the benefit of farmers at huge cost to
federal and state taxpayers and with severe environmental side-effects.
I. Vocabulary list
to befall
depletion
to evaporate
to run out
to thrive
lethal
dawn
to divert (away from)
inland
to turn smb into
sophisticated
to waterlog
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1Make up 5 sentences using Active vocabulary.
Ex.2 Pick out the sentences from the text in which the following words
and word combinations are used and translate them.
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The dawn of time, to waterlog the ground, to evaporate, to leave smth
behind, to run out, to feed smb, overexploitation, to shrink.
Ex.3 Translate the sentences into Russian.
1.Peace marked a new dawn in the country’s history. 2.Food supplies
were severely depleted. 3. Did we run out of fuel? 4.These animals rarely
thrive in captivity. 5.He got away from all sophisticated pleasures of city
life. 6. The detective has found a lethal dose of poison in the victim’s glass.
7.The match was postponed because the field was waterlogged. 8. By the
next visit to the surgeon the tumour had shrunk to the size of a pea. 9.
Suddenly it dawned on me that they couldn’t had meet before. 10.They were
unaware of the fate that was to befall them.
Ex.4 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary.
1.Во многих сказках злые ведьмы превращают людей в различных
животных. 2.К этому времени её уверенность полностью исчезла.
3.Уходя с места пикника, ничего не оставляйте после себя. 4.На
следующий день мы отправились дальше к городу, удаленному от
побережья. 5.Война на севере страны отвлекла внимание всех от
сложной экономической ситуации на юге. 6.Ты видел фильм «Дорогая,
я уменьшил детей!» 7. День за днем солнце испаряет влагу с
поверхности земли.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Say what facts you have known about
 The Sahara
 The Maya civilization
 Hohokam Indians
 The Aral sea
 The American west
Ex.2 Label the sentences TRUE or FALSE according to the text and
explain your choice.
1.The Sahara has always been a dessert.
2.The Maya civilization in Mexico is thought to have ended because of a
sudden flood.
3.A remarkably sophisticated irrigation system of Hohokam Indians in
Arizona became a lethal invention for their ground.
4. Since 1960 the Aral sea has become larger in size.
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5. A fishing fleet is the leading industry in the Aral sea.
Ex.3
Write a prйcis of the article.
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Text 3
Phenomena, Comment and Notes
By James Trefil
Iceberg armadas and flickering climates: how one good idea led to
more, and we appreciated anew the world's complexity.
There are few things in life more exhilarating than getting a really
good idea—one that just sings as it solves a problem that's been bothering
you for God knows how long. We've all had this experience. Sometimes the
ideas work out. Sometimes the ideas are total flops, in which case we bury
them and move on.
The sciences are a branch of human endeavor in which ideas are the
main item of commerce, the principle coin of the realm. Over the centuries,
the scientific community has developed a complex set of rules about how
ideas are to be evaluated, as well as some pretty definite criteria that tell you
when they can be accepted. So if you want to follow the story of a good
idea, what better place to look than science?
Douglas MacAyael, a young scientist of the University of Chicago has a
good idea about why Earth's climate developed as it did during the last ice
age.
Doug works in glaciology. Having spent months camping on Antarctic
glaciers and years trying to model their flow with computers, he knows about
how ice behaves when it piles up. The problem he addressed had to do with
a strange phenomenon people had found in cores drilled out of the ocean
floor in the North Atlantic. Geologists were amazed to discover successive
layers of rock debris and gravel that seemed out of place: the rocks in
those layers appear identical to stuff you'd expect to find on land in
northern Canada. Other evidence suggested that these layers, which
formed every 7,000 to 12,000 years, marked periods of rapid climate
change. Average temperatures climbed more than 10 degrees—the
equivalent of moving the climate of Atlanta to Boston—in a few decades,
followed a few thousand years later by an equally rapid return to normal.
These sudden shifts in climate, accompanied by out-of-place rocks being
dumped into the North Atlantic, were called "Heinrich events" after the
German scientist who first discovered them.
Doug's idea was that you could understand both the origin of the rocks
in the ocean bottom cores and the dramatic shift in the weather in terms
of the behavior of the ice sheet that covered North America over much of
the past 80,000 years. The depth of the sheet would increase as snow fell
and compressed into ice, but when the ice lying on top of Hudson Bay
reached to a height of about 10,000 feet, the soft rocks underneath would
13
crumble and mix with melt water, forming a slippery paste, and the whole
thing would slough down Hudson Strait and eventually into the ocean,
sending out an armada of icebergs, each with a load of crushed rocks
frozen into its undersides. When the icebergs melted, the rocks were
dumped. At the same time, the additional fresh water changed the patterns
of ocean currents while the absence of two vertical miles of ice changed wind
patterns.
I. Vocabulary list
Anew
to crumble
dump
flickering
flops
to slough
successive
core
debris
exhilarating
endeavour
realm
glaciology
pattern
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Match some of the words from the vocabulary list with their
definitions.
 Very exciting and enjoyable
 An area of activity, interest or knowledge
 Pieces of smth destroyed
 Smth not successful
 An attempt to do smth
 The central or important part of smth
 The regular way in which smth happens
Ex.2 Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
word combinations.
Полная неудача, изменяющийся климат, высверленный из
океанского дна, последовательно следующие друг за другом слои,
крошиться и смешиваться с талой водой, изменить обычное
направление.
Ex.3 Translate the sentences into Russian.
1.At the end of his speech he seemed to be moving into the realms of
fantasy. 2.My first parachute jump was an exhilarating experience. 3.A
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flicker of a smile crossed her face. 4.She was shaken to the core by the
news. 5.The empire finally crumbled into dust. 6. Clear away leaves and
other debris from the pond. 7.Exhausted, he flopped down into a chair.
8.This was their forth successive win. 9.The murders all seem to follow a
similar pattern. 10. Responsibilities are not sloughed off so easily.
Ex.4 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary.
1.Его попытки найти новую работу были безуспешными. 2.Они
собираются начать жизнь заново в другом городе. 3.Я нашел её
сидящей перед мерцающим экраном телевизора. 4.Ты когда-нибудь
видел змею, сбрасывающую старую кожу? 5.Спасатели все еще
расчищают место катастрофы от обломков самолета. 6. Сыр был
измельчен для этого салата. 7.Их встреча полностью изменила
привычный ход его жизни. 8. Слишком много токсичных отходов уже
сброшено в моря и океаны.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1Answer the questions using your active vocabulary.
1. What is Douglas MacAyael?
2. What field of science does he work?
3. What was he busy with in Antarctic?
4. What strange phenomenon have they found there?
5. Why did they call it “Heinrich events’?
6. What is the explanation of those out of place rock debris and gravel?
Ex.2 Make up a dialogue between Douglas MacAyael and a TV reporter.
Ex.3Translate the last paragraph in writing.
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Text 4
Elephant seals, the champion divers of the deep
By Kathleen McAuliffe
These ponderous pinnipeds continually set new records for diving to
crushing depths; researchers are hard at work to discover just how they do
it.
The California bathers do not welcome a truck on the beach overlooking
Monterey Bay. Annoyance quickly gives way to curiosity, however, when a
coffin-shaped cage becomes the center of activity. As parents and children
gather round for a closer view, marine biologist Burney Le Boeuf signals
a team of six to unload the crate at the water's edge. Out rolls Camille, a
juvenile northern elephant seal with a video camera attached to her
back. Big brown eyes blinking in the noonday sun, she circles once,
snarls at her human abductors and then galumphs toward the ocean.
Moments later, the world's first video-shooting elephant seal disappears
under a big wave.
Le Boeuf, a professor at the nearby University of California at Santa
Cruz, is gambling that the animal's homing instincts will guide it back to a
beach on the mainland behind the island of Ano Nuevo, a popular spring
gathering ground of elephant seals 18 miles up the coast. "You never
know—the film might just reveal something we didn't expect" he enthuses.
A moment later, his jubilant spirit falls prey to realism. "Or it might just
be all murk."
Such are the risks of animal trials with undersea technologies. But the
hope is that Camille will return from the deep with clues to how elephant
seals have evolved into the greatest diving champions on Earth. These
blimp-shaped creatures plunge to record-breaking depths—more than
4,000 feet—and stay down long enough to defy our understanding of
physiological limits. They accomplish this feat with dizzying regularity,
demonstrating an ease and endurance that no other marine mammals, not
even the great whales, can match.
They typically stretch from 16 to 18 feet in length and weigh from two to
four tons. During the mating season, the bulls bellow and charge one
another on the beach, delivering bloodletting bites to the neck. The winners
of these macho contests command among the largest harems of any
mammal, with a single victor sometimes inseminating as many as 100 cows.
Scientists had no inkling of their extraordinary diving feats until the
introduction of portable depth-recording equipment in the early 1960s. The
earliest prototypes were tested on Antarctica's Weddell seals, which
returned from the frigid depths registering dives of nearly 2,000 feet.
16
Awestruck, scientists launched a series of studies that led them to revise
radically their theories of how marine mammals withstand oxygen
deprivation and crushing depths. The first elephant seal to dive with
recording equipment immediately broke the record set by Weddell seals. In
1988 three northern elephant seals made steep de scents. The animals
had exceeded depths of 3,300 feet. "Our theories were blown clear out of
the water," recalls Le Boeuf. "They were breaking every record in the
book."
Today Le Boeuf still can't say for sure just what their true limit is.
Although a northern elephant seal recently reached slightly more than
5,000 feet—just under a mile—he doubts that that record will go
unchallenged for long. "It seems like every time we put a dive recorder on an
elephant seal it breaks a new record," he laughs. "Things just implode at
those depths," says Le Boeuf. "Many of our earliest instruments were made of
metal and looked really tough, but after being deployed on animals, they came
back all pushed in from the pressure." Many animals do live at such depths, but
they die when pulled to the surface. Elephant seals appear to be equally at
home at depth and at the surface—environments as different as Earth is from the
moon.
To appreciate their tours , Le Boeuf asks us to imagine four Empire State
Buildings stacked one on top of the other. An elephant seal is capable of
descending from the uppermost floor of the top building to the base of the
bottom building in about 20 minutes. It then ascends at the same speed, making
the round-trip journey of almost two miles in just 40 minutes. By contrast, the
elephant seal shows no signs of distress. What's more, this virtuoso diver can
remain submerged for seemingly impossible durations. A southern elephant seal
recently logged two hours down under. How do they do it?
Marine biologists have been trying to coax the secret from these Olympian
divers for more than a decade. Aware that colleague Randall Davis, chairman of
the department of marine biology at Texas A&M University at Galveston, was
studying Weddell seals by attaching video cameras to their backs, Le Boeuf
proposed a collaboration. The rationale of recruiting the elephant seals to spy
on themselves was irresistible and the men quickly reached an accord: Le Boeuf
would supply the animal and Davis would supply the camera.
Rather than releasing the seal miles out at sea, they would set it free from
the Monterey shoreline during the spring molting season, when seals taken from
Ano Nuevo usually make a bee-line back to their colony to complete the shedding
of their coats on land. The camera mount would be attached with—of all
things—epoxy. The camera could be retrieved at the trial's end, and when the
seal molted, the mount would simply fall off, and the seal would be none the
worse for wear.
17
Elephant seals do not rely on oxygen from the lungs to sustain them during
long dives (as diving birds and turtles do), Le Boeuf explains. Rather, the
oxygen is stored in blood and muscle. Blood constitutes as much as 20 percent of
their body weight, in comparison with only 7 percent in humans. What's more,
research by Jesper Qvist of Herlev Hospital in Copenhagen suggests that the
spleen of Weddell seals may double as a scuba tank. According to this theory, the
organ serves as a reservoir of oxygen-rich red blood cells which, under pressure,
are squeezed into the circulatory system.
Elephant seals lower their temperature by from 5 to 6 degrees F before
long dives. At depth, they shut off circulation to the kidneys, stomach
and other organs, conserving more oxygen. Meanwhile, their heart rates
slow from 120 beats per minute at the surface to as low as 6 per minute on
the bottom.
If the Weddell seal is a source of wonderment to scientists, the elephant
seal is downright mystifying. Not only does it dive deeper and longer, but it
does so again and again, barely pausing at the surface. While Weddell
seals rest from 11 to 13 hours out of every 24, the elephant seal never
seems to sleep. In the mid-1980s, using a long-running time-depth
recorder, Le Boeuf's team made a discovery that shook him more than
any other finding of his career. The recorder revealed that elephant
seals were diving continuously, 24 hours a day, week after week.
How do these animals stay submerged for so long? And why do
they dive so relentlessly? Is it to hunt for food? Or to escape becoming
food themselves? Finally, when—if ever—do they get a wink of sleep?
From analyzing the depth recordings of hundreds of elephant seals, Le
Boeuf now believes that the vast majority of their dives are foraging
expeditions. They dive to the tops of seamounts, where they lie in wait for
prey. Among the animals whose remains have been recovered from their stomachs
are skates, rays and sharks—some as long as six feet. Le Boeuf is not sure how
well they can see their prey, for they descend so quickly that their eyes have little
time to adjust to the blackness. By venturing where no other large competitors
dare to go, however, elephant seals have gained a virtual monopoly on some of the
richest marine waters off the continental United States. And by spending so little
time at the surface, they reduce their risk of being devoured by two formidable
predators that patrol shallow water: the great white shark and the killer whale.
Elephant seals present another mystery: why the animals never seem to doze
at sea? The animals, Le Boeuf speculates, sleep submerged. One likely time
that they may be dozing, he proposes, is during drift dives, when they float down
and up rather than actively swim. "My guess is that they don't sleep like us—but
they reduce their level of vigilance once they're outside the range of predators
below 130 feet," says Le Boeuf. "That would give them about ten minutes' rest
on the way down and ten minutes on the way up."
18
For all the reams of data and rich abundance of theories, the most basic
answers are not yet in hand. The question of whether the seals sleep while diving
remains open. The species' resistance to high-pressure nervous syndrome also
remains a profound enigma. Most problematic of all the scientists can’t explain
how an elephant seal can stay submerged for as long as two hours.
The answer to these riddles is not just of academic interest. The Navy, among
others, is eager to know how the animal protects itself against nervous convulsions
at depth, for this deadly reaction is the single greatest impediment to scuba divers
who want to go deeper than they now can. At the University of Alaska, marine
biologist Robert Eisner is keen to study how seals regulate their heartbeat, with
the goal of uncovering new strategies for controlling arrhythmic human hearts. He
is also fascinated by how they lower their temperature and other metabolic
functions during dives because these adaptations, he believes, could help to
shed light on how young children sometimes survive being submerged in icy
water for more than half an hour. Still other researchers are scrutinizing both
Weddell and elephant seals for clues to the cause of sudden infant death
syndrome, which occurs when babies stop breathing during sleep.
Clearly, marine biologists have their work cut out for them. Camille proved
maddeningly unpredictable in her pioneering trial. Expected back at Ano Nuevo
within two days of her release, she instead took a detour that delayed her return by a
week. But after apparently wandering off the continental shelf into deep water, she
did return to land. The camera housing held up to depths of 2,600 feet, and the
film was retrieved undamaged. Le Boeuf and Davis declared the mission a success.
I. Vocabulary List
ponderous
juvenile
to abduct
abductor
jubilant
to sustain
vigilance
to evolve
to ascend
to reveal
to scrutinize
to plunge
feat
mammal
to withstand
to squeeze
to venture
impediment
to descend
to molt
predator
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary.
19
Ex.2. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
to be all murk; to defy understanding; mating season; to have no inkling;
oxygen deprivation; to make the round-trip journey; to remain submerged; to
propose collaboration, molting season; shedding of one’s coats; to get a wink
of sleep; foraging expedition; shallow water, to take a detour, to break the
record
Ex.3. Translate the following words and expressions into English:
пожирать; огромный; устанавливать новые рекорды; прыгать;
погружаться на рекордные глубины; пренебрегать; выносливость;
взрываться; селезенка; почка; ожидать добычу; дремать; реветь; идти
кратчайшим расстоянием; привыкнуть к темноте
Ex.4. Express in one word using Active Vocabulary:
 Slow and awkward because of size and weight;
 A young person;
 Filled with or expressing great joy;
 Watchfulness;
 A clever action, showing strength, skill or courage;
 To oppose without yielding; to resist;
 A fact or event which makes action difficult or impossible;
 To lose or throw off ( feathers; hair; fur);
 An animal living by killing and eating other animals.
Ex.5. Translate into Russian:
1. The police thinks the missing boy has been abducted. 2. A jubilant
person shouted all the way to his house. 3. The meal sustained us through the
day. 4. The British political system has evolved over several centuries. 5. The
car stopped suddenly and he plunged forward. 6. It was quite a feat to move
piano by yourself. 7. Children’s furniture must withstand kicks and blows. 8.
Don’t venture too near the edge of the well; you may fall in. 9. It’s difficult
to understand him because he has a speech impediment. 10. She descended
the stairs quickly. 11. The stairs ascended in a graceful curve. 12. The
curtains opened, to reveal a darkened stage.
Ex.6.Translate into English using Active Vocabulary:
1. Он не мог сдержать своего интереса. 2. Цены упали. 3. Многие
млекопитающие занесены в Красную книгу и охраняются законом. 4.
Машина была полная, но в конце концов я смог протиснуться. 5. Я
отважусь сделать предположение, что люди будут жить на луне. 6.
20
Солнце опустилось за холмы. 7. Она неожиданно открыла тот факт,
что она не замужем. 8. Путешественники спустились в пещеру, где был
полный мрак. 9. Государство отвергло достижение новых результатов в
изучении млекопитающих в брачный сезон, не смотря на то, что
ученые сделали огромную работу. 10. Кит - самое большое морское
млекопитающее. 11. Молодой похититель зашел в мрачную комнату.
12. Главный вопрос состоит в том, как юные ликующие верблюды
смогли найти кратчайшее расстояние до ближайшего оазиса и
вынесли нехватку корма и воды.
III. Speaking Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. What was the purpose of experiment with Camille?
2. How far do these creatures plunge?
3. What is the length and weight of elephant seals?
4. What do mammals do during mating season?
5. When was the first portable depth-recording equipment introduced?
6. Are there any true limits to what depths mammals can descend?
7. How much time does it take them to descend?
8. Can elephant seals remain submerged?
9. Where is oxygen contained in elephant seals?
10. What happens with their temperature?
11. What is the difference between elephant seals and Weddell seals?
12. What for do they dive?
13. How long do they stay at the surface?
14. Who is the main predator who can eat them?
15. How do elephant seals sleep?
16. Why is the research of elephant seals important for scientists?
Ex.2. Recall the situations from the text illustrating the Active
Vocabulary.
Ex.3. Say everything you can about:
 Experiment with Camilla;
 Characteristics of elephant seals;
 Difference between Weddell seal and elephant seal;
 The necessity of studying elephant seals.
21
Ex.4. Make up a dialogue between marine biologist and reporter of one
of the scientific magazines, who is preparing an article about elephant
seals.
22
Text 5
Przewalski's horse
Przewalski's horses are the last surviving subspecies of wild horse. First
described scientifically in the late 19th century by Russian explorer N. M.
Przewalski, for whom the horse is named, the horse once freely roamed the
steppe along the Mongolia-China border. Never again seen in the wild,
Przewalski’s horses have since been kept and bred in captivity and have
recently been reintroduced in Mongolia.
With a short, muscular body, Przewalski’s horses are smaller than most
domesticated horses. They have a pale belly and beige to reddish brown coat
that is short during summer and thicker and longer in winter. Their muzzle is
white, and they don an erect and dark mane that lines their large head and
neck. They stand about 12 to 14 hands tall at the shoulder, or about 48 to 56
inches (122 to 142 centimeters), and weigh about 440 to 750 pounds (200 to
340 kilograms).
While extant in the wild, these horses ate grasses and other vegetation
on the steppe, shrub lands, and plains of western Mongolia and northern
China. Herds observed at reintroduction sites appear to be affectionate.
Females, or mares, and foals live in family groups with a dominant stallion,
while younger males live in bachelor groups. Mares give birth to a single foal
after an 11- to 12-month pregnancy.
Considered a wild subspecies because its ancestors were never
domesticated, the extinction in the wild of the Przewalski’s horse was due
primarily to interbreeding with other domesticated horses. About 1,500 exist
today, a large number living in zoos, but many also making up herds that
have been reintroduced at several sites in Mongolia.
While their greatest threats today include a loss of genetic diversity,
their extinction in the wild was also brought on by hunting, loss of habitat,
and loss of water sources to domestic animals.
Przewalski's Horse
I. Vocabulary list
wild/domesticated horse
to keep and breed in captivity
to reintroduce
extant
mane
23
muzzle
affectionate
to give birth to
to roam
extinction
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Find in the test the synonyms of the following words:
to wander, horse (3 words), loving, father or grandfather, abdomen, a
group of animals, location.
Ex.2. Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions and use them in the sentences of your own:
дикое животное; бродить, путешествовать, скитаться,
странствовать; любящий, нежный; сохранившийся, дошедший до наших
дней, существующий в настоящее время, наличный; вымирание (вида
животных, племени и т. п.), рожать, содержать и выращивать в неволе;
Ex.3. Match the words and their definitions:
1. mane
a) a group of similar plants or animals that is smaller than
a species
2. hand
b) the fur, wool, or hair that covers an animal's body
3. extant
c) the nose and mouth of an animal, especially a dog or
horse
4. extinction
d) the long hair on the back of a horse's neck, or around the
face and neck of a lion
5. affectionate e) a unit for measuring the height of a horse, equal to about
10 centimetres
6. coat
f) showing in a gentle way that you love someone and care
about them
7. muzzle
g) still existing in spite of being very old Syn: present
8. subspecies
h) when a particular type of animal or plant stops existing
Ex.4. Translate into Russian:
1. Chickens and geese roam freely in the back yard. 2. In his book, he
describes what life was like during his long captivity. 3. Only some
endangered animals can be bred in zoos. 4. Meanwhile, he said he would
not reintroduce the restrictions on foreign workers he had proposed earlier.
5. The dog lifted his muzzle to pick up a scent. 6. She brushed her long hair
into a shining mane and arranged it carefully around her shoulders. 7. This is
one of the few extant manuscripts. 8. He gave me an affectionate hug and
then left. 9. Greenpeace believes that whales are in danger of extinction.
24
Ex.5. Translate into English:
1. Многие виды животных находятся на грани (on the verge/edge of)
полного уничтожения. 2. Говорят, что он два года был в плену. 3. Это
пруд, в котором разводят уток. 4. Правительство не планирует вновь
вводить этот налог. 5. Пес покусал мальчишек, потому что она забыла
надеть ему намордник. 6. На дошедших до нас картинах изображены
предместья Древнего Рима. 7. Удивительно, что они сохранили нежные
отношения, прожив в браке более 40 лет. 8. Биологи говорят о том, что
многие виды женьшеня в Приморья находятся под угрозой
уничтожения из-за действий китайских браконьеров (poachers).
Ex.6. Make up 5 sentences of your own. Try to put them into a story.
III. Speaking and Written Practice
Ex.1. Answer the questions:
1. Whom were the horses named for?
2. How does Przewalski's horse look like?
3. Why were Przewalski's horses on the edge of extinction?
4. Explain what is interbreeding. What role has it played in the survival
of subspecies of wild horse?
5. Tell about the way horses live today. What endangers them?
Ex.2. Make up a dialog between a reporter of a local newspaper and a
horse-breeder. Make sure that you are going to discuss the
following:
 the horse’s name and appearance;
 factors that have brought Przewalski's horses on the edge of
extinction;
 threats to their existence;
 the role that interbreeding played in the survival of subspecies of
wild horse;
 the way horses live today.
Ex.3. Find information about other species that is on the verge of extinction
and share it with the group (make the group mates feel about
asking questions).
Ex.4. Translate the text into Russian.
25
Text 1
Extinction of amphibian species
When was the last time you saw a frog? Chances are, if you live in a city, you
have not seen one for some time. Even in wet areas once teeming with frogs and
toads, it is becoming less and less easy to find those slimy, hopping and sometimes
poisonous members of the animal kingdom. All over the world, even in remote
jungles on the far side of the globe, frogs are losing the ecological battle for survival
and biologists are at a loss to explain their demise. Are amphibians simply oversensitive to changes in the ecosystem? Could their rapid decline in numbers be
signaling some coming environmental disaster?
This frightening scenario is in part the consequence of a dramatic increase over
the last quarter of the century in the development of once natural areas of wet
marshland, home not only to frogs but to all manner of wildlife. Yet there are no
obvious reasons why certain frog species are disappearing from rainforests in the
Southern Hemisphere which are barely touched by human hand. The mystery is
unsettling, to say the least, for it is known that amphibian species are extremely
sensitive to environmental variations in temperature and moisture levels. The danger
is that planet Earth might not only lose a vital link in the ecological food chain (frogs
keep populations of otherwise pestilent insects at manageable levels), but we might be
increasing our output of air pollutants to levels that may have already become
irreversible. Frogs could be inadvertently warning us of a catastrophe.
An example of a bizarre occurrence regarding a species of frog dates from the
summer of 1995 when 'an explosion' of multi-coloured frogs of the species Rana
klepton esculenta occurred in the Netherlands. Normally these frogs are brown and
greenish-brown but some unknown contributory factor is turning these frogs yellow
and/or orange. Nonetheless, so far, the unusual bi- and even tri-coloured frogs are
functioning similarly to their normal-skinned contemporaries. It is thought frogs with
lighter coloured skins might be more likely to survive in an increasingly warm climate
due to global warming.
One theory put forward to explain extinct amphibian species that seems to fit the
facts concerns the depletion of the ozone layer, a well-documented phenomenon
which has led to a sharp increase in ultraviolet radiation levels. The ozone
layer is meant to shield the Earth from UV rays but increased radiation may
be having a greater effect upon frog populations than previously believed.
26
Another theory is that worldwide temperature increases are upsetting the
breeding cycles of frogs.
I. Vocabulary list
barely
to breed
demise
occurrence
pestilent
to be at a loss to do smth
irreversible
vital
bizarre
to decline
depletion
marshland
slimy
unsetting
inadvertently
shield
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Explain in English the meaning of the following words and word
combinations
Amphibians, poisonous, slimy, marshland, rainforests, ecological food
chain, air pollutants, multi-coloured, to survive, breeding cycle.
Ex.2 Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
word combinations.
Кишащий кем-либо, отдаленная территория, сверхчувствительные,
почти не ступала нога человека, загрязнители воздуха, прыгающий, не
иметь объяснения, двух/трех- цветная, сородичи, резкое увеличение,
закрывать от чего-либо, мягко говоря, нарушить цикл размножения.
Ex.3 Make up 5 types of questions to the text using the words and word
expressions from ex1, ex2
Ex.4 Translate the sentences into Russian
1. I am at a loss what to do next. 2. Of six people injured in the crash,
only two survived. 3. She survived her husband by ten years. 4. We had
inadvertently left without paying the bill. 5. The family was short of even
the bare necessities of life. 6. An increase in cars has resulted in the decline
of public transport. 7. I felt as we had reversed our roles of parent and child.
8. This area of the city has become a breeding ground for violent crime. 9.
He published his article about a link between the occurrence of skin cancer
and the use of computer monitors. 10. His manners were slimy that evening
and we decided that he was not the man to be chosen for that position. 11. It
27
is vital that you keep accurate records when you are self-employed. 12. She
hid her true feelings behind a shield of cold indifferences.
Ex.5 Translate the sentences into English paying attention to your active
vocabulary
1.Листья определенных деревьев ядовиты для рогатого скота.
2.Тропа через болото была слишком узкой и скользкой, мы не захотели
рисковать своей жизнью. 3.Хотя мы настаивали, мама навсегда
запретила нам ходить на болото. 4.Мы не ожидали, что они примут это
непреложное решение. 5.Налетчики использовали заложников как
живой щит. 6.Говорят, вандализм здесь редкое явление. 7.Он помнит,
что когда-то это озеро было наполнено рыбой. 8.Долгая засуха
привела к потере урожая. 9.Он купил карту для того, чтобы разыскать
на ней одно из самых отдаленных мест на Земле 10.Кроликов
разводят из-за их длинного и мягкого меха.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions
1. What creatures can be called amphibians?
2. What do you know about their living habits?
3. What do you know about frogs?
4. What characteristics are given to the frogs in the text?
5. What is happening with the amphibian species now?
6. What happened in the Netherlands in summer of 1995?
7. What is the explanation to that bizarre occurrence?
8. What are two theories on extinction of amphibian species nowadays?
Ex.2 Make up a dialogue between
- a resident of the Netherlands and a biologist.
- a person who is sure that everyone is important in ecological chain
and a person who thinks that some creatures are useless
Ex.3 Express your viewpoint on the problem
It so dangerous to lose any link in the ecological chain?
Ex.4 Pretend that you are a journalist visited the Netherlands in the
summer of 1995. Write an article for your newspaper about
the strange phenomena occurred those days.
28
Text 2
Some ideas on the natural balance in the biological world
Man's chief offence against nature has been to damage the earth's natural
covering of vegetation without replacing it with a system of farming able to maintain
the fertility of the soil. Man the farmer penetrated new lands in many directions, and
the forests and grasslands were vulnerable to his various activities.
The roots of plants help to bind and protect the all-important soil and keep it in
place. Falling dead vegetation and animal remains ensure a regular return of nutrients
to the soil. If kept in good condition a layer of soil acts as a sponge and regulates the
movement of water in the area. Also, green plants perform a further vital function on
our planet. Carbon dioxide is taken in by the leaves in the daytime because it is one of
the raw materials needed for the making of food substances such as sugars and
starches in the green cells during the process known as photosynthesis. At the same
time oxygen is given out. The carbon dioxide given out by the living world during
respiration is thus used and turned into valuable plant products of all kinds. In this
way a healthy balance of gases is maintained in our atmosphere.
As farming spread through Europe, Africa and Asia, this natural balance in the
biological world was altered in a variety of ways. Cultivators needed to ensure that
crops received maximum sunlight and rain and the minimum of competition from
other plants. They therefore cleared the land as completely as possible of the previous
vegetation.
The 'slash-and-burn' method, as it is called, was developed very early in the
history of agriculture, and present-day primitive Dyaks of Borneo, in the East Indies,
still provide us with an example of this type of farming. They clear the tropical rain
forest of their land with methods very similar to those used by the New Stone Age
people in Europe five or six thousand years ago. The bark of the trees is cut so that
they gradually die. Other vegetation is also cut down and, when it has dried out, is
burned. This leaves gaps of bare soil between the dead trees which now cast little
shade. In these gaps the seeds are planted and from them harvests of a sort are finally
removed.
After a year or two the harvests begin to get smaller and smaller because the
plant food in the soil has been used up. The soil becomes exhausted and the
community moves on to the next area to deal with that in the same way. The forest
soon invades the abandoned plots and to some extent fertility is restored. During the
period of clearance, however, valuable soil will have been lost by erosion and this is
especially serious in hilly areas in the tropics where rainfall may be frequent and
heavy. While populations were low and stable little permanent damage was done, but
with a steady increase in the size and number of human communities the forest and
soil have little time to recover.
Forest felling and the burning of vegetation was frequently practiced in New
Zealand by nineteenth-century immigrants from Europe who 'opened up' the country
for farming. Such activities loosened the hold the vegetation had upon the soil,
resulting in rapid, widespread erosion as the soil that had accumulated over the
centuries was carried away by the rainwater draining off the land.
29
I. Vocabulary list
offence
to penetrate
to bind
steady
bark
fertility
drain
steady
vegetation
vulnerable
to alter
slash
abandoned
exhausted
stable
starch
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Use an English-English Dictionary to give your explanation to the
following words and word combinations
Vegetation, nutrients, sponge, a cell, perspiration, to maintain the
fertility of the soil, stable population, steady increase.
Ex.2 Express in one word (using Active Vocabulary)
 To tie smb\ smth with smth
 Easily hurt physically or emotionally
 Firmly fixed
 Not changing
 To make smth dry or empty by removing all the liquid
 Very tired
 To go into or through
 To leave smth because it is impossible to stay
 To make a cut
 The outer covering of a tree
 Plants in general
Ex.3 Replace the underlined pronouns with suitable words and word
combinations from the text
1. It a raw material for making food substances in the green cells
2. They help to keep the soil in place
3. It is cut to make trees dry and dead.
4. When it becomes exhausted the community moves on to the next
area.
5. It is restored when the forests invade the abandoned places
6. They result in rapid erosion
30
Ex.4 Find in the text synonyms to the following words
Вырубать (2)
Устойчивый (2)
Земля (2)
Ex.5 Translate the sentences into Russian
1. Add an egg yolk to make the mixture bind. 2.Nothing can alter the
fact that we are to blame. 3.In cases of food poisoning, young children are
especially vulnerable. 4.Exhousted climbers were rescued by helicopter.
5.This year the company has been trying to penetrate new markets. 6.I can’t
give you a lift. Somebody has slashed the tyres of my car. 7.All the colour
drained from his face when I told him the news. 8.His mind was like a
sponge, ready to absorb anything. 9.He spent all his life sponging off his
relatives. 10.The castle receives a steady streams of visitors.
Ex.6 Translate the sentences into English paying attention to your active
vocabulary
1.Он так изменился, что я с трудом узнал его. 2.Внезапное уход в
отставку финансового директора поставил компанию в очень уязвимое
положение. 3.Он сделал несколько глубоких вдохов,чтобы успокоить
дыхание. 4. Внезапный снег заставил многих водителей оставить
машины на стоянках. 5.Она думала, что появление их ребенка
привяжет его к ней навсегда. 6.Зимой зайцы обычно питаются корой и
веточками. 7.Оставьте меня одного! Я без сил! 8. Экологическая
ситуация во всем мире постоянно ухудшается
9.Накрахмаль
воротничок перед тем как гладить рубашку. 10. Без обид! Я хочу все
сделать своими силами.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1Explain the process of
a)
b)
c)
d)
photosynthesis
perspiration
the “slash-and-burn” method
erosion
Ex.2 Make up 6 sentences to put each of them in each paragraph.
31
Ex.3 Translate into English using your active vocabulary.
Кислород жизненно необходим человеку. Во время дыхания
человек вдыхает кислород, выдыхая углекислый газ. Углекислый газ
поглощается листьями растений, так как он необходим для фотоситеза.
Фотосинтез-это процесс, происходящий при вырабатывании сахара и
крахмала в зеленых клетках растений. В результате этого, кислород
вновь выделяется в воздух. Таким образом поддерживается правильный
баланс этих двух газов в атмосфере.
Ex.4 Make up a dialogue between a farmer from New Zealand and an
ecologist.
32
Text 3
Waste Utilization
Growth, so devoutly desired by politicians and public alike, generates
more and more rubbish. Getting rid of this rubbish is more and more
expensive and there are no financial incentives to encourage consumers to cut
back on waste. Municipal waste – mainly generated by households – has
been growing by 3% a year broadly in line with the rate of economic growth.
Britons currently dispose of about 30 m tones of garbage a year.
Until now Britain has opted for burying most of the stuff. Around fourfifths of municipal waste is sent to landfill sites. This approach has made
considerable sense in an island with sites to spare because of its particular
geology and a history of quarrying. But landfill sites are getting scarce
especially in southern England where most people live. And they are
becoming more expensive to run as the government insists on safeguards
against environmental hazards like the leaking of toxic wastes into
underground aquifers. But the biggest constraint on dumping the stuff in
landfill sites is Britain’s commitment to meet European Targets to slash the
amount of biodegradable waste that is put into landfill sites. These targets are
intended to cut emissions of methane (a greenhouse gas) and to reduce the
risk of water contamination from landfill.
If you can’t bury it, an alternative is to burn it. A programme to build as
many as 130 new incinerators was envisaged. But burning also entails
environmental risks. Although new incinerators are now much cleaner than
previous ones people are scared about exposure to dangerous chemicals like
cancer-producing dioxides. So the government now appears to be backing
away incinerations.
If you have to bury less and you can’t burn more, another option is to
recycle more. There is certainly ample scope to do this in Britain which
recycles only about a tenth of municipal waste – far less than most European
economies do. The government wants to step up its recycling rate to 25%.
Recycling appears to be a possible solution but it can only work if there
is demand for recycled materials. The market for recycled metals like
aluminium works well but this is not the case for other materials such as
plastics. Recycling also remains the most expensive option which is why
New York, for example, is going to give up the recycling glass and plastics.
Even if Britain does meet the government’s recycling targets a gap will
remain between the growth in waste and a landfill capacity that will be
increasingly constrained by the European targets. The obvious solution is to
get households to throw less away. But this will happen only if household
and consumers are made to pay directly (rather than indirectly through
33
taxation) for the amount of waste they generate. Charges can also be used to
create incentives for households to separate waste before collecting,
something that is vital if recycling is to become more cost-effective.
There was a political kerfuffle when a proposal to this effect by the
Cabinet Office was leaked and the government appeared to back away from
it. But plenty of European countries do charge for collecting rubbish. It may
be politically painful but the only remaining alternative.
I. Vocabulary list
devoutly
approach
contamination
to envisage
scope
kerfuffle
scarce
target
hazzard
incentives
considerable
incinerator
ample
constraint
to quarry
aquifers
charge
constrain
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions
Отделаться от чего-либо, уменьшить отходы, свалка, вред для
окружающей среды, утечка токсичных отходов, уменьшить количество
мусора, уменьшить риск, переработка, возможное решение, спрос на
что-либо, прекратить делать что-либо, очевидное решение, брать
деньги.
Ex.2Translate the sentences into Russian
1. The drinking water has become contaminated with lead. 2. If you
tried to do something that is within your scope, you would succeed. 3. What
is all the kerfuffle about? 4. The campaign is clearly targeted on the young
5. Most of the waste is incinerated. 6. The area is being quarried for
limestone. 7. His efforts were amply rewarded. 8. She devoutly hoped he
was telling the truth 9. There is an increased demand for organic produce
these days. 10. Everybody is aware of the hazards of smoking. 11. The
evidence was so compelling that he felt constrained to accept it.
34
Ex.3 Translate the sentences into English paying attention to your active
vocabulary
1. Все еще остается возможность улучшить экологическую
ситуацию. 2. Ставьте перед собой цели, которые вы реально надеетесь
достичь 3. Вы думаете, музеи должны брать деньги за вход? 4.
Содержание доклада просочилось в прессу. 5. Проблема избавления от
ядерных отходов трудноразрешима. 6. Он постоянно повторяет свои
старые шуточки.
Ex.4 Using an English-English Dictionary give your explanation to 5
words or word combinations from your vocabulary list and
ask other students from your group to express each
explanation in one word.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Маке up 5 sentences using words and expressions from Ex.1
Vocabulary exercises
Ex.2 Say whether the following information is TRUE or FALSE
1. Britons dispose 30 tones of garbage a year.
2. Until now Britain has opted for burning most of the stuff.
3. Most of municipal waste is sent to landfill sites.
4. Landfill sites are a great problem in northern England.
5. Methane is a gas to cool the Earth’s surface.
6. Incinerators are used for burying waste
7. The government wants t reduce its recycling rate to 25%
8. Recycling markets works well for all materials.
9. New York is going to give up recycling because it is very expensive.
10. In many European countries consumers do not pay for collecting
rubbish.
Ex.3 Make up a dialogue between
- a British journalist and a British ecologist
- a British journalist and a member of Cabinet Office
Ex.4 Make up a monologue (as a comprehensive answer to one of the
questions provided)
1. Why the waste utilization is a real problem in Britain?
2. What are possible ways for utilization of waste?
35
3. How can we optimize the way of waste utilization?
EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE
Text 1
Striving for a satisfactory education
The need for a satisfactory education is more important than ever before.
Nowadays, without a qualification from a reputable school or university it is
very difficult to get a good job. Moreover, one's present level of education
could fall well short of future career requirements.
It is no secret that competition is the driving force behind the need to obtain
increasingly higher qualifications. In the majority of cases the urge to upgrade is no
longer the result of an insatiable thirst for knowledge. The pressure is coming
from within the workplace to compete with ever more qualified job applicants, and
in many occupations one must now battle with colleagues in the reshuffle for the
position one already holds.
Striving to become more educated is hardly a new concept. Wealthy parents
have always been willing to spend the vast amounts of extra money necessary to
send their children to schools with a perceived educational edge. Working adults
have long attended night schools and refresher courses. Is the present situation so
very different to that of the past?
The difference now is that the push is universal and from without as well as
within. A student at a comprehensive school receiving low grades is no longer as
easily accepted by his or her peers as it was once the case. Similarly, in the workplace
they may be frowned upon by their employers and have difficulty even standing
still. In fact, the expectation is for careers to go backwards and earning capacity
to take an appreciable nosedive.
At first glance the situation would seem to be laudable; a positive response
to the exhortations of politicians for us all to raise our intellectual standards and
help improve the level of intelligence within the community. Yet there are serious
ramifications according to at least one educational psychologist. Dr. Brendan
Gatsby has caused some controversy in academic circles by suggesting that a bias
towards what he terms 'paper excellence' might cause more problems than it is
supposed to solve. Gatsby raises a number of issues that affect the individual as well
as society in general.
Firstly, he believes the extra workload involved is resulting in abnormally high
stress levels in people. Secondly, skills which might be more relevant to the
undertaking of a sought-after job are being overlooked by employers not
interviewing candidates without qualifications on paper. These two areas of
concern for the individual are causing physical as well as emotional stress.
36
Gatsby also argues that there are attitudinal changes within society to the
exalted role education now plays in determining how the spoils of working
life are distributed. Individuals of all ages are being driven by social pressures to
achieve academic success solely for monetary considerations instead of for the
joy of enlightenment. There is the danger that some universities are becoming
degree factories with an attendant drop of standards. Furthermore, our education
system may be rewarding doggedness above creativity; the very thing tutors
ought to be encouraging us to avoid. But the most undesirable effect of this
academic paper chase, according to Gatsby, is the disadvantage that 'user pays'
higher education confers on the poor who invariably lose out to the more
financially favoured.
Naturally, Gatsby's comments regarding university standards have been
roundly criticized as alarmist by most educationists who point out that, by any
standard of measurement, Britain's education system overall, at both secondary
and tertiary levels, is equal to that of any in the world.
STRIVING FOR A SATISFACTORY EDUCATION (PP.18-19)
I. Vocabulary list
Obtain
reshuffle
perceived
to frown upon
laudable
ramifications
bias
spoils
doggedness
insatiable
striving
edge
nosedive
exhortations
controversy
sought after
enlightenment
tertiary
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Match the given definitions with the words from active vocabulary
 Showing determination
 Discussion about smth that smb strongly disagree
 Wanted by many people, because it is of very good quality
 Third in order, rank or importance
 To disapprove of smth
 Deserving to be praised
 Get smth by making an effort
 An interest in one thing more than others
37


The profits smb gets from being successful
A sudden steep fall
Ex.2 Translate into Russian
1.These changes are bound to have widespread social ramifications.
2.In her family any expression of feeling was frowned upon. 3.These
policies have sent the construction industry into an abrupt nosedive. 4.They
had been exhorted to action. 5.I finally managed to obtain a copy of his
report. 6.The company needs to improve its competitive edge. 7.We
encourage all the citizens to strive against corruption in our society. 8.She
didn’t perceive herself as a disabled. 9.He expected it to be a much sought
after design.
Ex.3 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1.Они настаивали на том, чтобы написать cтатью об обвинении
газеты в ее политическом пристрастии 2.Если бы он только слышал
споры, окружающие его последний фильм 3.Все издатели стремились
первыми опубликовать эту историю. 4.Это открытие было отмечено как
главный прорыв в физике.
5.Эта актриса считается самой
востребованной из-за ее красоты и таланта. 6.Часть 18 века называют
Эпохой просвещения, потому что тогда писатели и ученые начали
спор, что наука важнее чем религия .
7.Провалив экзамен, он
предпринял похвальную попытку исправить ситуацию.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Fill in the gaps using your Active vocabulary
1. The need for a ……….. education is more important than ever before.
2. Nowadays, without a………..from……….school or university it is
very difficult to find…….
3. Competition is the…….. ….. behind the need to obtain higher
qualification
4. The urge to upgrade is no longer the result of an……. …….. for
knowledge.
5……..to become more educated is hardly a new concept.
6. Wealthy parents have always been willing to send their children to
school with a ….. educational ….
7. A student receiving low grades in future may be….. …. by their
employers.
Ex.2 Answer the questions
38
1. Why is satisfactory education more important nowadays then before?
2. The urge to upgrade is the result of an insatiable thirst for knowledge,
isn’t it?
3. Where does this pressure come from?
4. Where have wealthy parents been willing to send their children to?
5. Why is the situation is not so laudable according Dr.Gatsby?
6. Why do people try to achieve academic success?
7. What is wrong with our education system
Ex.3 Speak on the following
 Principal ideas of Dr. Brendan Gatsby
 Confirm his ideas or disapprove his ideas
 Discuss the situation with education in your country
39
Text 2
Language as a system of symbolic communication
All people known to anthropologists, regardless of their kind of society,
have had a highly complex system of spoken, symbolic communication that
we call language. Language is symbolic in that a word or phrase can
represent what it stands for whether or not that thing is present.
This symbolic quality of language has tremendous implications for the
transmission of culture. It means that a human parent can tell a child that a
snake, for example, is dangerous and should be avoided. The parent can then
describe the snake in great detail giving particulars of its length, diameter,
colour, texture, shape and means of locomotion. The parent can also predict
the kind of places where the child is likely to encounter a snake, then he or
she will probably recall the symbolic word for the animal, remember as well
the related information and so avoid danger.
If symbolic language did not exist, the human parents would have to
wait until their baby actually saw a snake and then, through example, show
the child that such a creature was to be avoided. Without language we could
not transmit or receive information symbolically and thus we would not be
heir to so rich and varied a culture.
Kanzi is a pygmy chimpanzee. When he was two and a half he was
separated briefly from his mother (who had already begun her own language
training) and he suddenly, without any coaxing at all, began to use her board
and the symbols on it to request food and activities and announce what he
was about to do. In one day he showed that he had learned signs his mother
had failed to learn. His trainers decided that from that point on Kanzi should
be trained to use symbols but that his training would reflect the casual,
spontaneous learning he had already demonstrated. Kanzi has never been
required to use symbols to get anything - if he does use them it is because he
has seen someone else using them, in much the same way a child learns to
speak.
Kanzi is quite different from all other chimpanzees that have been taught
to use symbols to express their thoughts. For one thing, he understands
spoken English. Kanzi's trainers have even tested him with words produced
by a speech synthesizer, one that produces a sound for every letter of the
alphabet and comes out with a very weird, flat, clipped, monotonous kind of
speech, only two-thirds of which is understandable by adult humans. Kanzi
understands about two-thirds of it as well, meaning that the emotional
content, unintentional stresses on words and any of the other cues that might
40
have tipped him to the meaning of the words spoken by his trainers cannot
explain his understanding of speech.
There is also evidence that he can comprehend grammatically
complicated commands, as long as they are precise. So if there is an orange
sitting in front of Kanzi and he is told, 'Go to the sitting room and get the
orange', he hesitates (is he thinking 'which orange'?). But if the sentence is
rearranged: 'Get the orange that is in the sitting room', he has no trouble, even
though there is that complicated (for a chimp) phrase in the middle, 'that is in
the'. In fact at the age of eight Kanzi was better at understanding such
sentences than a two-year-old girl who was being asked the same sorts of
questions. However, even a brilliant performance by Kenzi is going to be
treated with caution by the skeptics, and there has already been some doubt
cast on exactly what the symbols on the board mean to Kenzi. It has been
argued that because Kanzi switches from one meaning to another for a given
symbol, depending on the context, the symbols cannot mean the same thing
to him as a word means to a child. For instance, Kanzi will use 'juice' to refer
to the 'drink', the place where he gets the drink or the act of going to that
place. But when tested for his vocabulary, he links the symbol 'juice' with the
picture of a glass of juice. Critics use this evidence to claim that Kanzi just
uses the symbol as a means of solving different problems in different
circumstances and has no idea that it means 'juice' all the time. This sounds
like a tricky argument, because children do what appears to be the same sort
of things, like pointing to the chair and saying 'Daddy'. But the critics say that
children rarely use a word for two different kinds of things, like using 'table'
to mean both the thing in the kitchen and breakfast, whereas Kanzi does.
I. Vocabulary list
locomotion
heir
weird
precise
implication
avoid
pygmy
hesitate
evidence
encounter
coax
cues
tremendous
clipped
predict
comprehend
circumstance
cast
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find in the text English equivalents for the following word and
word expressions and use them in the sentences of your own
41
Олицетворять, несмотря на, передавать и получать информацию,
совсем без уговоров, следует избегать, восприниматься с
осторожностью, несмотря на, быть разделенным с кем-либо, быть
понятым кем-либо, эмоциональное содержание, быть лучше в чем-либо,
объявлять о том, что намерен делать, попросить еду, выражать идеи.
Ex.2 Using an English-English Dictionary give your explanation to 5
words or word combinations from your vocabulary list and ask other
students from your group to express each explanation in one word.
Ex.3 Translate into Russian
1. I had never encountered such resistance before. 2. A tremendous
amount of work has gone into the project. 3. Please, do not hesitate to
contact me if you have any queries. 4. She began doing strange weird
inhuman sounds. 5. Was it predicted that that inflation would continue to
fall? 6. They failed to consider the wider implications of their actions. 7.
Doctors found it hard to establish the precise nature of her illness. 8. The
infinite distances of space are too great for the human mind to comprehend.
9. They built a wall to avoid soil being washed away. 10. Police said there
were no suspicious circumstances in that death. 11. He was coaxed out of
retirement to help the falling company. 12. Joe’s arrival was a cue for more
champagne. 13. Did he cast himself as the innocent victim of a hate
campaign? 14. The implication in his article is that being a housewife is
greatly inferior to every other occupation. 15. She kept avoiding my eyes.
Ex.4 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1.Тебе следует избегать упоминания о их разводе. 2.Они видели
как наследник трона вышел из дворца. 3.Предсказывая её будущее,
он старался не напоминать ей о прошлом. 4.Кого попросили дать
показания во время судебного разбирательства? 5.Следует «раскинуть
сеть пошире» когда впервые ищешь работу. 6.Ваши уговоры не
заставят меня изменить мое мнение. 7.Чтобы быть более точным, эта
командировка займет 3 недели. 8.Зная пьесу хорошо, он дал мне сигнал
включить музыку. 9.Мы не ожидали, что столкнемся с таким
сопротивлением.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Finish the sentences according to the text
1. Language is symbolic in…
2. The symbolic quality of language has tremendous implications on…
42
3. If symbolic language doesn’t exist…
4. Kanzi is a…
5. At the age of 2 and half…
6. He began to use his mother’s board…
7. Kanzi can understand …
8. At the age of 8…
Ex.2 Retell the story of Kanzi
Ex.3 Express your opinion as if you are
A) Kanzi’s trainer
B) A critical scientist
43
Text 3
Genes May Influence Language Learning
Mason Inman
If you get tongue-tied when trying to learn a new language, your genes
may be to blame, a new study suggests.
While there is no gene yet found that is responsible for preprogramming
a person with a given language, there does appear to be a link between types
of two genes and the languages people speak. The new findings could be the
first sign of a subtle effect in which people's DNA could bias them toward
learning a particular set of languages.
Robert Ladd and Dan Dediu at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland
noticed the possible link while studying the genes dubbed Microcephalin and
ASPM. These genes play a role in brain development and appear to still be
evolving in humans. "I looked at maps of the distributions of the old and new
versions of the genes," Ladd said. "And I said, that looks like the distribution
of tonal languages."
In tonal languages, the same word can have widely different meanings
depending on the inflection of the speaker. The researchers scoured records
of genes from societies around the world and compared their findings with
the languages those groups speak. While they didn't prove there's a direct
link, they did reveal a strong connection between the versions of the two
genes that people had and whether their native language was tonal or non
tonal.
About half of all existing languages are tonal. In Mandarin Chinese, for
example, the syllable "ma" can take on several unique meanings. When it's
pronounced with a single high-pitched tone, "ma" means "mother." But when
it has a low-pitched lilt in the middle, it means "horse"—making it a word
you don't want to mispronounce.
The other half of all languages are non tonal, meaning they use pitch
only for things like marking a question.
If your ancestors were from Southeast Asia or sub-Saharan Africa,
where the native languages are nearly all tonal, you probably have the older
versions of both genes. If your ancestors were all from Europe, where people
mostly speak non tonal languages, you probably have the new version of
Microcephalin and have a 50-50 chance of carrying the new ASPM gene.
These genes may give you a bit of a tin ear for tone, the study suggests.
Evolving Tongues
44
The effects of these genetic markers might not be obvious in babies
learning their native tongues. As far as anyone has been able to tell, babies
can learn any language on Earth equally easily, as long as they are exposed to
it from a very early age.
But the differences could show up more strongly in adults struggling to
learn a foreign language. "Children don't have quite the same language that
their parents have," Ladd said. That's why Shakespeare's English is different
from today's.
The new study suggests that genes could also play a role in this
phenomenon. "If there was really a gene for tone, you would expect even
native speakers of a tone language to vary greatly in terms of their abilities to
perceive or use tones in their languages," said Suzanne Flynn, a linguist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Ladd plans to look for this kind of effect in follow-up studies.
I. Vocabulary list
gene
dub
inflection
reveal
lilt
tin
show up
subtle
evolve
scour
bias
pitch
expose
perceive
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find mistakes in the given definitions
To reveal- to make smth secret
To evolve- to develop from a complicated form to a simple one
Subtle- very noticeable
Lilt-irregular rising and falling pattern in music
Gene-a unit inside a cell that has been passed on from children
Ex.2 Translate into Russian
1.The fragrance is a blend of jasmine and sandalwood. 2.I rolled up
my sleeves and pitched into cleaning the kitchen. 3,They were widely
perceived to have been unlucky. 4.Suddenly she laughed, revealing a line
of white even teeth. 5.The harsh light showed up the broken window.
6.Don’t worry about being shown up by the kids- they have always used
computers. 7.Her voice had a soft Welsh lilt to it. 8.That American film was
45
dubbed in Russian but I’d like to enjoy it in original. 9.The water had raced
down the slope and scoured out the bed of a stream.
Ex.3 Decide which of the word from Vocabulary list can fill the gap in
each sentence to make it true.
1. We ….. the area for somewhere to pitch our tents.
2. Some employers still have a strong… against women.
3. She has dropped only… hints about what she’d like as a present.
4. The door opened to… a cosy little room.
5. My job as a journalist is to ….the truth
6. She spoke slowly and without ….
7. The explosion …her violently high in the air.
Ex.4 Translate into English
1. Она сидела в темноте, боясь, что ее обнаружат. 2. Некоторым
людям дают прозвища из-за их поведения, привычек или фамилий 3.
Во время отлива обнажаются мили песка и берег становится шире. 4.
Идея выставки появилась когда я обнаружил на чердаке этот рисунок.
5. На море был шторм и корабль качало и подбрасывало на волнах всю
ночь. 6. Мы давно не виделись и я отметил изменения в его внешности
и поведении.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Say what you have known about
 The genes dubbed Microcephalin &ASPM
 Tonal languages
 Non tonal languages
 People whose ancestors came from Southeast Asia or sub – Saharan
Africa
 People whose ancestors came from Europe
Ex.2 Role play
Write down some questions for Robert Ladd and Den Dediu and make
an interview with them.
Ex.3 Develop the idea
 Genes may influence language learning
 Age may influence language learning
46
HISTORICAL WONDERS
Text 1
Schliemann discovery
Homer, the great blind poet of ancient Greece, wrote a long account of
the Trojan war in the 'Iliad'. People had long been interested in finding the
city of Troy, but the only man who took Homer's description seriously was
Heinrich Schliemann. Using Homer as his guide Schliemann discovered what
was almost certainly the ancient city of Troy. Though he had made it his aim
to find Troy as a young man, Schliemann was only able to realize his
ambitions after he had become a successful merchant.
Schliemann at once realized that the spot in Asia Minor generally
believed to be Troy did not match Homer's detailed description. According to
Homer, a palace of sixty rooms had been built on a hill and the Greeks had
marched between their ships and the city several times a day. The hill on
which Troy was supposed to have been built was not only very small but was
a great distance from the sea as well.
Much nearer the sea Schliemann came across a bigger hill. Homer had
written that Achilles and Hector had run round the walls of Troy three times
while fighting each other. Having calculated that this would have been
possible Schliemann decided to dig. It was not long before he discovered the
remains of a city — not Troy but a much later one called New Ilium. When
his workmen dug deeper Schliemann was most surprised to find that there
were no less than nine cities built on top of each other. But which of these
was Troy? Homer again provided Schliemann with two important facts: the
city had been built of stone and had been burnt to the ground by the
conquering Greeks. Schliemann believed that the second city must have been
Troy for he found the ruins of a palace and a large gate blackened by fire. Yet
the most astonishing discovery was still to come. After noticing something
shining in the soil Schliemann got so excited that he dug with his bare hands.
He unearthed the beautifully preserved treasure of King Priam: gold, silver
and jewellery, thus completing one of the most important historical
discoveries ever made.
I. Vocabulary list
Account
merchant
astonishing
bare
47
spot
remains
ruins
blind
dig
conquer
provide
treasure
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions and use them in the sentences of your own.
Принять всерьёз, использовать как руководство, подробное
описание, сделать целью, руины города, один на другом, копать глубже,
не меньше чем, почерневший от огня, обеспечить фактами,
предположительно была построена, высчитав что…, самое
поразительное, прекрасно сохранившийся, вырыть из земли, голыми
руками, исполнить мечту.
Ex.2 Express in one word using Active vocabulary.
A person who buys and sells goods in large quantities
To make smth black
To do or make smth without weapons or tools
To move soil from one place to another using your hands, a tool or a
machine
A particular area or place
Smth extremely valuale for you
To take a control of smth or smb by force
Parts or things that are left
Ex.3 Translate into Russian
1. The dog bared his teeth and growled. 2. The family was short of even
the bare necessities of life. 3. Did she give the police a full account of the
incident? 4. They dug in their heels and would not lower the price. 5. The
only way to conquer this fear is to face it immediately. 6. Please answer
questions in the space provided. 7. She fed the remains of her lunch to the
dog. 8. It astonishes me that he could be so thoughtless. 9. Every aspect of
her private life has been laid bare. 10. It was the barest hint of a smile. 11.
No one sent me, I am here on my own account.
Ex.4 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1. Когда-то Венеция была городом богатых торговцев 2. Меня
поражает, как он может быть таким легкомысленным в такой серьезной
ситуации. 3. Насколько я помню, гора Эверест была покорена в 1953
году. 4. Тот небольшой скандал разрушил его репутацию. 5. Он
48
обвинил газету в том, что в одной из статей они пытались очернить его
имя и репутацию его фирмы. 6.Оголенные провода торчали из кабеля.
7. Какой у вас номер счета в банке? 8. Тебе надо было побольше
покопаться в этих записях, чтобы найти нужную информацию. 9. Я
наверняка был слеп, чтобы не заметить опасности, в которой мы
находились. 10. Мы знакомы уже много лет и я очень дорожу нашей
дружбой.
Ex.5 Choose the right word from your active vocabulary to complete
each sentence.
1. They fed the … of their festive dinner to the homeless dogs.
2. The divorce ultimately led to his…
3. The walls were … except t for a clock.
4. Coursework is taken into … as well as exam results.
5. The faces were … with soot.
6. We are here to … a public with this service.
7. The team members were greeted like … heroes.
8. Tabloid newspapers love to … up scandal.
9. When we went outside she was temporarily … by the sun.
10. This ring is my most … possession.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions
1. Who was Homer?
2. Who was Schliemann?
3. What was believed to be Troy in Schliemann’s time?
4. What facts didn’t match Homer’s detailed description?
5. What place was chosen by Schliemann for digging?
6. What was the result of their digging?
7. Which of the remains were supposed to be Troy?
8. Did they find smth valuable?
Ex. 2 Say everything you can about
 Homer
 Schliemann
 Troy
 New Ilium
 Achilles and Hector
 Schliemann’s discoveries
49
Ex.3 Make a dialogue between Schliemann and a reporter of a scientific
magazine, who is very interested in ancient Greece.
Text 2
The Great Pyramid
The only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that still exists
is also the oldest of them all. The Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt was built
some time around 2560 ВС; it was already two thousand years old when
work began on the next Wonder, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The age
of the Great Pyramid - more than 4500 years - is so great that it seems almost
as if it has been there for ever, and that it will last for ever. In the words of
the Arab proverb, 'Man fears Time, but Time fears the Pyramids'. It is so old
that it appears almost indestructible.
But age is only one of the reasons why the Great Pyramid is so
extraordinary. Another is its size: it is by far the largest of the Seven
Wonders and, except for frontier walls such as the Great Wall of China, it is
the largest single thing made of stone that has ever been constructed. Then,
there is the amazing effort and skill that were needed to cut all that stone and
put it together into what is a near-perfect geometrical form, with only simple
tools and technology. In fact, if we were asked today for a list of Seven
Wonders, the Great Pyramid would certainly still be on it. But why was such
an extraordinary thing ever built? What exactly is it? The achievement of the
builders seems incredible to us, reliant as we are on modern machinery.
The Great Pyramid, like the other larger pyramids in Egypt, is the burial
place or tomb of one of the country's ancient kings. During the period in
Egyptian history known as the Old Kingdom (3100-2180 ВС), more than
twenty pyramids were built at different places along the River Nile. Three of
the larger ones are at Giza which is now a suburb of Cairo. Like all the other
pyramids, they are on the west bank of the Nile with only the desert and the
setting sun beyond. To the ancient Egyptians the west was the home of the
dead. This was where the sun-god Ra who sailed across the sky in his boat
during the day began his nightly journey down through the Underworld.
These structures serve as the final resting place of kings.
For a person's spirit to survive death, the Egyptians believed that the
body had to be preserved. This was because the spirit of the dead person left
the body at night but had to return to it in the morning for food and rest.
Without these things the soul would be lost. Members of a family or their
priests would therefore place food in the tomb together with furniture and the
other necessities of life. Nourishing the spirit was considered important for
life after death.
So that the returning spirit would recognize its home, the body had to be
kept as life-like as possible which is why the Egyptians perfected the art of
50
embalming bodies to produce what we now call mummies. We do not know
what the ordinary people who could not afford to pay for embalming thought
would happen to their spirits after their bodies had decayed. Perhaps they
simply accepted that in death as in life they would not be as lucky as their
rulers.
Class and economic differences are apparent in the Ancient Egyptians'
approach to death.
Their king, or pharaoh, was considered to be a god — a son of the sungod Ra - and his body had to be especially well protected after death. We can
therefore understand why the pyramid which was his royal tomb was so
large: by placing the mummy of the dead pharaoh deep inside such a huge
structure, the builders thought that no one would ever be able to disturb it.
Special security precautions were taken when burying a 'divine' royal.
The shape of the structure was important too: a pyramid represented the
rays of the sun as they spread out and touched the earth. Its design is
symbolic.
I. Vocabulary list
indestructible
tomb
embalm
decay
priest
reliant
nourishing
mummy
apparent
divine
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions and use them in the sentences of your own.
Как будто это было всегда, почти идеальная геометрическая форма,
место захоронения, душа, могила, как в жизни, поразительное умение,
усовершенствовать искусство бальзамирования, пережить смерть, никто
не сможет побеспокоить, в смерти как и в жизни, различия были
очевидны.
Ex.2 Explain the meaning of the following words and word combinations
The Seven Wonders of the World, time fears the Pyramids, the
Underworld, soul, mummy, pharaoh
Ex.3 Translate into Russian
1. My boots are nearly indestructible because the leather is thick. 2.
Since he doesn’t have a job, he is reliant on his parents to support him. 3.
51
Egyptian pyramids are tombs and monuments to dead rulers. 4. The moral
decay of the leadership destroyed the nation. 5. The child's fear of the dark
was nourished by her brother’s frightening bedtime stories. 6. My parents
were concerned at my apparent lack of enthusiasm for school.
Ex.4 Using an English-English Dictionary give your explanation to 5
words or word combinations from your vocabulary list and ask other
students from your group to express each explanation in one word.
Ex.5 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
Когда то люди создали необыкновенно уникальные творения,
которые позже были названы Семью Чудесами Света. Одним из них
являются пирамиды Египта. Древние египтяне верили, что душа
человека не покидает его тело после смерти и по ночам она просто
бродит по свету, чтобы утром вернуться обратно в тело за отдыхом и
пищей. Могилы были обставлены самым необходимым для голодной и
уставшей души: едой, мебелью и другими необходимыми предметами.
Искусство бальзамирования тел в древнем Египте была доведена до
совершенства, но было доступно только богатым и знатным людям.
Тела фараонов хоронили в пирамидах, чтобы их никто не тревожил.
Почти геометрические формы и огромные размеры пирамид,
построенных без помощи техники впечатляет всех, кто их видел.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions
1. How many wonders of the Ancient World were created?
2. What pyramids were created for?
3. How many pyramids were built along the river Nile?
4. Why were they built on the west side of the river?
5. What did Egyptians believe?
6. Were there any differences in Egyptians’ approach to death?
Ex.2 Say everything you can about
 Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
 Reasons why the Great Pyramid is so extraordinary
 Giza
 Ancient Egyptians’ attitude to death
 Nourishing the spirit
 The shape of pyramids
 The size of pyramids
52
Ex.3 Create your own story, using the Arab proverb “Man fears Time,
but Time fears the Pyramids”
Text 3
Some Ideas on Pyramids Construction
The ancient Egyptians were sticklers for detail. Despite their size the
pharaohs' tombs are positioned with extraordinary accuracy — the east and
west walls of the Khufu pyramid, for example, are aligned north-south to
within one-twentieth of a degree. Over the centuries many competing
theories have tried to explain how the pyramids' builders accomplished this
feat of precision engineering. Was it luck, geometric prowess or the helping
tentacle of a visiting alien? Now an Egyptologist seems to have solved the
riddle — by looking at how the ancients got it wrong rather than how they
got it right.
Using the heavens as a compass is complicated by precession — the
slow swiveling of the earth's axis that causes the celestial north pole to trace
out a circle every 25,800 years. At the moment the celestial north pole is near
the star Polaris; in 13,000 years' time it will be near the star Vega. In the
night sky of ancient Egypt, though, no such placeholder was present. Kate
Spence of Cambridge University suggests that the pyramid builders must
have used a couple of nearby stars to fix the location of the pole instead.
Dr Spence suggests that the Egyptians aligned the pyramids according to
an imaginary line connecting two stars on opposite sides of the invisible pole
— one in Ursa Major and one in Ursa Minor (familiar to Americans as the
Big Dipper and Little Dipper). Using a plumb line an ancient Egyptian
astronomer could have determined when the line linking the two stars was
vertical. The point at which the plumb line met the horizon would then
indicate precisely the direction of true north.
Or at least it would for a couple of years either side of 2467BC. Before
and after that date this method would give an answer that was slightly wrong.
But the error turns out to correspond closely with the observed errors in the
pyramids' positions: the further their estimated dates of construction are from
this window of accuracy, the larger the errors in their alignments. All of
which strongly suggests that Dr Spence's method may indeed have been the
one used to align the pyramids.
Furthermore, by working backwards from the alignment error this
theory can be used to provide more accurate estimates of the dates of the
pyramids' construction. Existing chronologies of ancient Egypt involve
uncertainties of up to 100 years. But this new approach could narrow down
that margin to just five years or so.
53
No doubt Dr Spence's work will disappoint some people — most
notably those who take the meticulous design of the pyramids as evidence
either of extraterrestrial intelligence or of the omniscience of the ancients.
But, although this new hypothesis seems to demonstrate that the ancient
Egyptians were unaware of the effects of precession, at least it restores credit
for the design of the pyramids where it is due: they were built by ordinary
men using the stars as their guide.
Text 4
The Lost Continent
It all started with the Greek philosopher Plato. About 347 ВС in two of
his famous dialogues Plato described a prosperous continent inhabited by
people of great learning and culture. This continent or island was located
beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" which today we know as the Straits of
Gibraltar. One day in 9600 ВС, according to Plato, the island was destroyed
by a volcanic explosion and a huge tidal wave. Overnight it sank to the
bottom of the ocean. Only a few people escaped. The name Plato used in his
dialogues for this island was Atlantis.
The story of the lost continent, as it is often called, was one told
originally by a Greek statesman named Solon. He had heard of the island
during a trip to Egypt in the sixth century ВС and he found out all he could
about it. What Plato wrote two centuries later was based on Solon's findings.
For thousands of years Plato's story of Atlantis was the only one; no one
else wrote about it. The two dialogues were full of descriptive detail about
the island and many of Plato's fellow Greeks were convinced the story was
true. Others, however, including Plato's famous pupil Aristotle, were not
convinced: they said it was an invention he used to illustrate his philosophy.
Plato insisted that his account of Atlantis was completely authentic.
Since Plato's time millions of words have been written about Atlantis.
There is a wide variety of opinion, however, about the location of the island
and the exact date that it blew up and sank into the sea. Some authorities on
the subject claim that it was located beneath the Azores and that these
Portuguese islands in the Atlantic are the tops of mountains on Atlantis. This
coincides with what Plato believed. Others feel it is farther south under the
Canary Islands.
Certain French archaeologists have announced that the Sahara Desert in
North Africa was once covered by an inland sea and that by digging in the
sand of the desert we will find Atlantis.
Spanish authorities on Atlantis insist that it is somewhere off the coast
of Spain. Russian scientists tell us that the lost continent is in the Caspian
54
Sea. There are many other fascinating theories too. They differ in many ways
but all agree on one basic point: long ago there existed a continent that blew
up one day and disappeared beneath the waves of the ocean.
In 1882 an American named Ignatius T Donnelly gathered together all
the information he could find about the mysterious island and published it in
“Atlantis: The Antediluvian World”. Today Donnelly's book is still
considered the 'bible' of Atlantis. The lost island, he reported, was where all
the civilizations of the world, from Egyptian to Incan, originated. Survivors
of the catastrophe in 9600 ВС fled to the lands east and west. Some of them
reached what is now America. There exists the belief among some people
that Indians living in the Americas are descendants of these survivors. The
Mayan and Incan cultures according to this belief developed from the
original civilization of Atlantis. Incan and Mayan folktales relate the story of
a people who escaped to America from a terrible disaster in a distant island.
Early in the twentieth century attention turned to yet another explanation
of Atlantis: Santorini, an island in the Aegean Sea. In ancient times this was
called Thera and was part of the Minoan Empire. Scholars note similarities
between Atlantis and the Minoan civilization which was centred at Knossos
on the island of Crete. This was a powerful empire until about 1400 ВС when
a disastrous explosion caused much of Santorini to disappear into the sea.
The tidal wave that followed reached Crete destroying much of its coastline.
This weakened the Minoan Empire which depended on sea trade. It never got
back its former strength as a Mediterranean power.
A great difference in time can be seen here. According to Solon's
account Atlantis disappeared in 9600 ВС but Santorini was destroyed in 1400
BС. There is a simple explanation for this great difference: Solon read the
numerical symbols in the Egyptian records incorrectly. He read 100 as 1000.
If we remove one zero we can then read every number in Solon's story of
Atlantis quite differently; the destruction of Atlantis thus took place about
900 years before Solon's time, not 9000 years; this places the tragic event in
the fifteenth century ВС which is when Santorini was destroyed.
More recently an American visionary Edgar Cayce looked into the past
and said he saw Atlantis. Although he had never read Plato's dialogues his
description of the lost continent was similar to the one written 2300 years
before in Athens. Cayce said that in his vision he saw Atlantis located near
North Bimini, an island in the Bahamas. He predicted that in 1968 and 1969
some temples of the ancient kingdom would be found there.
In 1968 a deep-sea diver J Manson Valentine came upon the ruins of
some ancient buildings while swimming underwater off the coast of North
Bimini. Since then other divers have explored the area. They declare that the
'buildings' were not made by man but were formed by nature.
55
In 1975 and 1977 expeditions conducted by David Zink in the same area
brought blocks of stone to the surface. Zink insisted that because of the way
these blocks had been formed and placed one on the top of the other, they
could only be man-made. Until now no one has been able to dispute this
theory.
Where Atlantis was located has been the subject of many arguments but
for the moment all that has been claimed, either for or against the existence
of Atlantis from Plato's day to the present, has been speculation. The mystery
of the lost continent remains unsolved.
Text 5
The Story of the Oldest Seafaring Ship
One of the oldest seafaring ships in the world has been reconstructed
after seven years' patient archaeological work. The ship, a sixty-foot sailing
vessel, sank off the coast of Cyprus in the days of Alexander the Great
around the year 300 ВС. Its discovery and restoration have now thrown new
light on the ancient trade routes and shipbuilding techniques.
What makes the Cyprus ship so informative is the remarkable state of
preservation - mainly due to an unusual feature of its design. The hull was
sheathed on the outside with lead that was fixed to the timber with bronze
tacks which helped the wooden frame survive 2000 years under the sea.
The first clue to the wreck's existence came in 1964 when a sponge
diver from the present-day resort of Kyrenia came across a pile of amphorae
(ancient storage jugs).
Unfortunately his diving air supply ran out just at that moment so that he
had no time to mark the spot. It took him three more years and hundreds of
dives before he chanced upon them again.
He reported his find to an underwater archaeological team from the
University of Pennsylvania which was surveying the Cypriot coasts for
wrecks. After checking his description, the team decided to concentrate their
resources on the Kyrenia ship, and over the next two years a team of no few
than fifty archaeologists and divers took part in the excavation.
With the help of a metal detector the team discovered that wreckage lay
scattered over a 2000-square-feet area, often buried beneath sand and
seaweed. Each item was carefully photographed in its place, and a system of
plastic grids stretched over the whole site so that it could be accurately
mapped.
More than four hundred amphorae lay buried in the sand. The ship had
been carrying a cargo of wine and almonds. More than nine thousand of these
were found in or near the amphorae, their outer shells still perfectly
56
preserved. As well as these, there were twenty-nine stone grain mills, being
carried both as cargo and as ballast. These were carefully stowed in three
rows parallel to the axis of the keel.
As well as the main cargo, there were other small finds. Four wooden
spoons, four oil jugs, four salt dishes and four drinking cups suggested the
number of crew on the ship's last voyage. There was an axe, and near the
intricately carved mast lay a wooden pulley used to raise and lower the yard.
A bronze cauldron, used perhaps to prepare the crew's meals, was also lying
in the wreck.
Of five bronze coins found none dated earlier than 306 BС. Carbon-14
analysis of the almond cargo pinpointed their date at about 288 ВС, but that
of the ship's planking suggested an earlier date of 370 ВС. Thus the Kyrenia
ship was more than eighty years old the day she sank - a long life for a
wooden hull and proof of the good craftsmanship of her builder.
Raising the delicate timber of the ship presented grave problems. The
archaeologists decided that trying to lift them out in one piece would be too
risky. Instead the hull was cut into sections on the site by an electric
underwater saw. Then each carefully labeled piece was raised to the surface
by a lifting balloon. Once out in the air again, each timber section was treated
with a preservative called polyethylene glycol. This replaces the water in the
weakened wood so that the timbers do not disintegrate when they dry.
Until the discovery of the ship little was known of the Eastern
Mediterranean trading vessels, their routes or their cargoes. Thanks to the
different shaped amphorae the Kyrenia ship's last voyage can be traced. She
had been threading her way southwards along the coast of Anatolia, stopping
at the islands of Samos, Kos and Rhodes before continuing eastwards to the
north coast of Cyprus.
What calamity caused her to sink about a quarter of a mile east of the
horseshoe harbour of Kyrenia remains a mystery. There are no traces of fire
on board which rules out the possibility of lightning. Perhaps a sudden
autumn storm simply caught her four-man crew unawares. They seem to have
abandoned ship, for no human remains were found on board.
I. Vocabulary list
seafaring
restoration
sheath(e)
sponge
scatter
cauldron
vessel
hull
tack
excavation
grid
disintegrate
57
calamity
trace
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Explain the meaning of the following words and word expressions
in English and make up 5 sentences using some of them.
Seafaring ship, a sponge diver, amphorae, diving air supply, a wreck,
excavation, a metal detector, seaweed, grave problems, ballast
Ex.2 Using an English-English Dictionary write definitions to the
following words
Axis, keel, pulley, yard, hull
Ex.3 Translate into Russian using your active vocabulary
1. He put his dagger back in its sheath giving up the idea of killing him.
2. That evening she looked perfect in her simple black silk sheath, didn’t she?
3. Do you know that letting her organize the party is a recipe for calamity, as
a manager she is a real disaster? 4. A lot of weapons and pottery were
excavated from burial site by archeologists last summer. 5. He took his gun
and the first shot scattered a flack of birds roosting in the trees. 6. To make
this strawberry dessert you should wash each berry, hull them, place on the
plate and cover with cream. 7. During yesterday match the stadium is said to
be a seething cauldron of emotion. 8. Washington is a well planned city and
you will never be lost in its grid of streets. 9 Physically, I was a total wreck.
10. Police searched the area but found no trace of the escaped prisoners.
Ex.4 Translate into English paying attention to your new vocabulary
1.Необходимо остановить разрушение традиционных ценностей и
сохранить русскую культуру для потомков. 2.Его ум был подобен губке,
готовой впитать все вокруг себя. 3.Они пытались спасти хоть чтонибудь в их разрушающемся браке. 4. Oни отправились в круиз по
Тихому океану на большом теплоходе с заходом в несколько портов.
5.Имея такое допотопное оборудование, глупо продолжать раскопки. 6
Премьера спектакля была полным провалом 7.Вскарабкавшись на
перевернутый корпус корабля, они дожидались спасения. 8.Его
сердечный приступ произошел из-за заблокированной артерии. 9. Слеза,
сбежав по его грязной щеке, оставила на ней извилистую дорожку.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1Answer the following questions
1. What was founded not far from the resort of Kyrenia?
58
2. Who found it?
3. Who raised the ship and how?
4. How did the scientists find out the age of the ship?
5. What was the cargo of the ship?
6. What other things were there?
7. What made possible to trace the last voyage of the ship?
8. What caused the ship to sink?
Ex.2 Retell the story as if you were
 the sponge diver from Kyrenia
 a member of the team from University of Pennsylvania
Ex.3 Make up a plan of the text (in writing) and retell it according to
your plan.
Ex.4 Create your own story (12-15 sentences) using any words and word
expressions from active vocabulary.
59
Text 6
Great Wall of China , Damaged, Disappering
Paul Mooney in Beijing
Archaeologists announced the discovery of a new section of the Great
Wall of China near the Mongolian border—the northernmost segment ever
found.
But what's most noticeable about the wall today is not what's
reappearing but what's vanishing. After decades of government neglect and
intentional destruction, the Great Wall is by turns crumbling and riddled with
relatively new gaps you could literally drive a truck through.
Now, a new national law aims to protect the national treasure, though
the first penalties have been relatively mild.
Thirty percent of the Great Wall is in ruins, and another 20 percent is in
"reasonable" condition, according to a survey of a hundred sections of the
wall carried out by the Great Wall Society of China. The remaining 50
percent has already disappeared. "The Great Wall's greatness lies in its
totality," said William Lindesay, the founder of International Friends of the
Great Wall. "If there's one brick less, or another gap to make way for a dirty
road, then the continuity of the wall is broken and the value is reduced."
The Great Wall was never actually a single wall but many walls, snaking
along a 4,000-mile (6,400-kilometers) east-west path across northern China.
Some of the barricades are said to date back to the seventh century B.C. But
most of what we think of as the Great Wall was built during the Ming
dynasty (1368-1644). Attacks on the Great Wall are nothing new, from Handynasty battles with the Huns to damages sustained during the 1930s and '40s
war with Japan.
Some of the greatest destruction, however, has been fairly recent. In the
1950s, for example, Chinese leader Mao Zedong exhorted the masses to
"allow the past to serve the present." Farmers were mobilized to demolish
parts of the wall and use the bricks for building houses, pigpens, and walls.
As capitalism began making inroads in the 1980s, many officials believed
that tourism money would save the wall. But today the industry may pose the
biggest threat to the wall's survival. Poorly executed restoration efforts have
left sections near the capital, Beijing, looking like a Hollywood set.
Entrepreneurs have set up cable cars, souvenir stalls, fast-food restaurants,
amusement facilities, villas, and crowded parking lots—all within a stone's
throw of the structure. In Gansu province a portion of the wall was rented out
to farmers, who "restored" the wall by covering it over with cement, then
60
installed a gate, so they could charge admission. A short distance away
tourists have pulled grass from rammed-earth walls—among the oldest and
most endangered segments. And Christmas lights have been nailed to the
14th-century towers guarding Gansu's Great Wall gate.
For his new book, The Great Wall Revisited, Lindesay, a photographer,
gathered hundreds of old photos of the Great Wall. He then set out to
rephotograph 150 of the locations in the earlier images, creating sobering
pairs of then-and-now scenes. In some cases, he found that sections had
disappeared altogether. "Delivering the evidence is very important," Lindesay
said. "You can really see the wall disappearing."
The New York-based World Monuments Fund put the Great Wall on its
list of the World's 100 Most Endangered Sites. Chinese government officials
sat up and took notice. "It was a wake-up call," said Lindesay, who's spent
more than 1,200 days on the wall over the past 20 years.
Beijing announced its first regulations to protect the Great Wall in the
capital area. Then the central government announced a new national law to
protect the wall. It is now illegal to remove bricks or stones from the wall,
carve names in the bricks, hold raves on the wall, or build a house against the
wall. Also important, the law says that "all citizens, legal entities and
organizations" are charged with protecting the wall and reporting illegal
activity to government agencies. Vice chairman of the Great Wall Society of
China, said the new rules are significant. "Now the government has clearly
made the protection of the Great Wall a national effort," he says. "The law
states what can and can't be done and it says who's responsible. And it
defines society's responsibility to protect the Great Wall." The drafting of the
law is a sign of the government's growing awareness of the problem. The
Chinese are realizing that a lot has been lost. Already the new law is showing
its teeth. A construction company became the first to be fined under the new
rules. For dismantling large pieces of the wall to make way for in illegal
highway, the authorities fined the builders the equivalent of U.S. $6,500.
The wall's biggest problem today is the lack of understanding among the
Chinese, who he said don't realize the true significance of the Great Wall.
The survey team, for instance, found parts of the wall covered in Chinese
graffiti and farmers carting bricks away from the wall, just as they've been
doing for decades. Three men in Inner Mongolia were detained for taking
earth from an ancient 2,200-year-old section of the wall to use as a landfill
for a village factory. "It's just a pile of earth," village head told to the official.
Outside of Beijing the Great Wall is in very poor and backward areas.
Trying to get the significance of the wall across to a people worried about
their survival is not easy.
61
I. Vocabulary list
to vanish
to neglect
to carry out (a survey)
to charge (admission)
to crumble
to demolish
to exhort
to install (a gate)
to dismantle
to nail
to draft a law
to be fined (under the new rules)
to detain
be detained for smth., doing smth
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions and use them in the sentences of your own:
пренебрегать, игнорировать; исчезать; проводить исследование;
устанавливать ворота; юридическое лицо; разбирать (машину);
уговаривать, предлагать; целостность, непрерывность; угрожать чемулибо; терпеть убытки; разрушать, стирать с лица земли; сыпаться,
обваливаться;
быть
задержанным,
арестованным;
готовить
законопроект; забивать гвозди, прибивать.
Ex.2. Use an English-English dictionary to find definitions to the
following word combinations:
 to sit up and took notice;
 within a stone’s throw of smth.;
 to pose a threat to smb./smth.;
 to hold raves;
 to sustain damages.
Ex.3. Find the words to the following definitions:
 to disappear suddenly, especially in a way that cannot be easily
explained;
 to ask someone for a particular amount of money for something you
are selling;
 to end or ruin something completely;
 to break apart into lots of little pieces, or make something do this;
 to make someone pay money as a punishment;
 to officially prevent someone from leaving a place;
62
 to put a piece of equipment somewhere and connect it so that it is
ready to be used;
 to take a machine or piece of equipment apart so that it is in separate
pieces.
Ex.4. Translate the sentences into Russian:
1. He exhorted the workers to end the strike. 2. Marie decided not to
move after all, but she neglected to inform the rental agency. 3. The
youngster vanished without a trace one day and has never been found. 4.
Lawyers charge such high fees, but they never seem short of clients. 5. The
Museum has no admission charge. 6. When they demolished the church, a
cave was discovered beneath it. 7. The first thing the soldiers did was to
dismantle the enemy's surveillance equipment. 8. Crime has dropped since
the video cameras were installed in the town centre. 9. Inspectors have the
power to fine any passenger travelling without a ticket. 10. There is a
shortage of people to carry out research. 11. She was detained in hospital
with a suspected broken leg. 12. Rangoon's old buildings are crumbling
from neglect. 13. The prisoners sat down together to draft a letter to the
governor. 14. A sign saying 'No Fishing' had been nailed to the tree.
Ex.5. Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary:
1. Самолет пропал с экранов радаров вскоре после взлета. 2.
Небольшие магазинчики устанавливают более высокие цены на
аналогичные товары. 3. Восточное крыло здания было полностью
уничтожено огнем. 4. Когда она вернулась машина исчезла. 5. В
центре города были установлены камеры слежения. 6. Мы установили
новое программное обеспечение.7. Его дом и студия были уничтожены
более 100 лет назад. 8. Необходимо было разобрать ворота чтобы
освободить животное. 9. На компанию был наложен штраф в размере 2
млн. долларов за нарушение закона «О защите окружающей среды».
10.Исследования проводятся по всей стране.11. Полиция задержала
двух подозреваемых для допроса. 12. Каменная кладка (stonework)
разрушилась, и всему зданию был необходим ремонт. 13.
Американский флаг был прибит на стене над кроватью.
Ex.6. Explain what is meant by the following and translate into Russian:
1. The New York-based World Monuments Fund put the Great Wall on
its list of the World's 100 Most Endangered Sites.
2. Poorly executed restoration efforts have left sections near the capital,
Beijing, looking like a Hollywood set
63
3. "It was a wake-up call," said Lindesay, who's spent more than 1,200
days on the wall over the past 20 years.
4. Already the new law is showing its teeth, or at least its gums.
5. Also important, the law says that "all citizens, legal entities and
organizations" are charged with protecting the wall and reporting illegal
activity to government agencies.
III. Speaking and Written Practice
Ex.1. Answer the questions:
1. What can be inferred from the title of the article?
2. What is the Great Wall of China?
3. What facts tell us that the Great Wall of China has been damaged?
4. Explain who is to blame for the destruction of the Wall?
5. Why does the author believe that tourists pose the biggest problem to
the wall’s survival?
6. How does Lindesay try to attract people’s attention to the problem?
7. What measures are taken by different institutions to protect the Great
Wall?
8. What other actions should be taken to protect the national treasury?
9. Which measures do you find the most effective ones?
Ex.2. Express your viewpoint on the problem (using your active
vocabulary) as if you are:
 an archaeologist;
 a tourist visiting the Great Wall;
 a farmer living within a stone’s throw of the Great Wall;
 a lawmaker drafting laws to protect the world’s most endangered sites;
 an entrepreneur who works with tourists visiting the Wall;
 the author of the article.
Ex.3. Do a written translation of the passage ‘A constructions
company…. (to the end)’
Ex.4. Write a prйcis of the article.
64
CULTURE AND ARTS
Text 1
The Power of Music
Music, after all, is nothing more than a sequence of sound waves. So
why did the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart fill his rival, Antonio
Salieri, with longing and pain? Why do we fill our own lives with music - in
the concert halls of Vienna, in the streets of Harlem, on the plains of India?
What is it that allows a sequence of sound waves to touch us so deeply?
Part of the answer seems to lie in the physics of the sound waves. Scales
and chords, for example, are constructed from pitches that are mathematical
progressions of one another. When we hear a middle C, the air is vibrating
some 260 times per second. Double that to 520 vibrations per second, and we
hear а С exactly one octave higher; multiply middle C's vibrations by 3/2,
and we hear the G in that octave at 390 vibrations per second.
Over the centuries musicians have elaborated such relationships into an
enormous body of music theory. But valuable as it is, theory only tells us
how music works, not why. It cannot explain why one tune is utterly banal
and another is magic.
Obviously, a great deal of our appreciation for music is learned. You
may like a song that I hate simply because it resembles other songs that you
like. On a more fundamental level, the aesthetics of music vary widely
between cultures. In the Orient the stress is on pitch and tiny intricate
intervals. In sub-Saharan Africa the rhythms reach dizzying complexity. In
the 18th-century Europe of Bach and Mozart, the ideal was order, structure
and balance.
But again, none of this explains why almost everyone responds to some
kind of music, or why music in one form or another appears in every known
human society.
In the last analysis, it seems that the power of music lies not in the
sounds but in ourselves. Just as our eyes are receptors to light and our ears
are receptors to sound, we somehow have in our brains a receptor to music.
In fact Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner argues that musical
intelligence is something that is separate and coequal with other forms of
intelligence, such as an ability with words or with numbers.
65
In many ways, Gardner says, music and language abilities are very
similar. Babies start to babble fragments of 'song' as early as they start to
make little word sounds. Older children progress in stages showing an ability
to sing longer and more complex songs in much the same way as they start to
use longer and more complex sentences.
But music is not just language in another form. For example, the Soviet
composer V. Shebalin suffered a stroke in the left temporal lobe of his brain,
the area for language comprehension. Afterwards he had great difficulty
communicating, yet his compositions were as brilliant and as sensitive as
ever.
On the other hand, a young musical composer suffered damage to the
right hemisphere of his brain. He had no trouble communicating and
eventually returned to teaching music. But he had lost all interest in
composition. He even lost much of his enjoyment in listening to music.
Studies such as these, Gardner says, indicate that some key essence of
our musicality is located in the right front of the brain. The exact location,
however, and the exact nature of that essence is far from clear. Even if we do
someday track down the brain's 'music receptor', we are still left with one
final mystery: Why is it there? Some scholars have suggested that our
musical abilities evolved at the same time we acquired language, anywhere
from a few hundred thousands years ago to a million years ago. Yet language
gave our tribal ancestors a clear evolutionary advantage: better
communication meant a better chance at survival. What need did music
serve?
Of course we would also ask that question about painting or sculpture,
dance or poetry. Why do humans respond to beauty of any kind? To that
question we have no more answer than Shaffer's tortured Salieri who cried up
to his 'sharp old God': "What is this? Tell me, Signore! What is this pain?
What is this need in the sound? Forever unfulfillable, yet fulfilling him who
hears it, utterly."
I. Vocabulary list
sequence
rival
longing and pain
pitch
to respond (to)
appreciation (for smth)
to track smth down
to elaborate
utterly
to torture
intricate
to suffer s stroke
tribal ancestor
66
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions and use them in the sentences of your own:
гаммы и аккорды;
до мажор; ученый; головокружительная
сложность;
соперник;
височная
доля
головного
мозга;
эволюционировать; сущность; полушарие; выследить, исследовать до
конца; пытка.
Ex.2. Translate into Russian:
1. The questions should be asked in a logical sequence. 2. Basic
computer code consists of sequences of ones and zeros. 3. The fight started
as an argument between rival gang members. 4. Ultrasonic waves are at a
higher pitch than the human ear can hear. 5. He said he had new evidence,
but refused to elaborate any further. 6. You look utterly miserable. 7. The
farmers use an intricate system of drainage canals. 8. Damage to the
corresponding part of the right hemisphere had no effect on speech. 9. The
militias have been known to use torture to get people to confess.
Ex.3. Translate into English:
1. Танец – это последовательность шагов, которые вы повторяете
снова и снова. 2. Объемы продаж нашей фирмы превышают объемы
продаж наших конкурентов. 3. Они пытались пропеть на разной
высоте слова своей песни и выбрать лучший вариант для записи. 4.
Этот аргумент будет более подробно изучен в следующей главе. 5. Ее
комментарии по поводу молодых людей были просто смешны. 6.
Лазеры используются для того, чтобы вырезать из дерева сложные
узоры (design). 7. Какая же это пытка для ребенка выслушивать
родительские наставления! 8. Пытка это самый простой и быстрый
способ получить важную информацию.
III. Speaking and Written Practice
Ex.1. Answer these questions:
1.
What is the text about?
2.
What do you know about rivalry between Mozart and Salieri?
3.
Why do you think the text begins and ends with this story?
4.
What is the relation between music and languages?
5.
What music do you like? Can you explain why?
6.
Does our appreciation for music depend on culture? Give
examples.
67
Ex.2. Label the following statements 'true/false' according to the text:
1.By understanding the physics of the sound waves, we will understand why
people respond to music in the way they do.
2.Much of our appreciation for different types of music is learned.
3.
Although in most cultures music is very important, in some human
societies there is little or no music at all.
4.
We are usually attracted to and like music that is very different from
what we are used to.
5.According to the author, human beings respond to music mainly
because we have a special 'music receptor' in our brain.
6.
Music ability and language ability seem to develop in children at
approximately the same time.
7.Because of the similarities between music ability and language ability most
scientists believe that music is really language in another form.
8.When scientists discover the exact location of the brain's 'music
receptor', the mystery of why we like music will finally be solved.
Ex.3. Speak on the topic of music as if you were:
 a physicist;
 a poet (or musician);
 a psychologist;
 Salieri.
Ex.4. Comment on the following statements:
 Music is not confined to sound waves.
 A great deal of our appreciation for music is learned.
 Musical intelligence is something that is separate and coequal with
other forms of intelligence, such as an ability with words or with numbers.
 The power of music lies not in the sounds but in ourselves.
68
Text 2
“Family Heirlooms”
The sale by the University of Manchester of certain books from the
financially exhausted John Rylands Library has caused widespread
indignation. So too has the Government's proposed legislation permitting
national museums and galleries to sell works in their collections.
That is wholly understandable. No one likes the idea of selling family
heirlooms, even when they are dull, ugly things. This has nothing to do with
the question. Everyone feels better for knowing that they are in the cellar.
Sometimes they are of particular emotional value — when they are in
languages we cannot understand, or their acquisition is associated with a
romantic legend of piracy or fraud.
One trouble with cellars, however, is their tendency to be damp. Another
is that over time the cellars begin to get rather crowded. If you have so much
that you no longer even know what you do have, and visit your cellars very
infrequently, you may find on your next incursion that time has worked its
wicked inartistic way with your priceless bins of art.
This is the trouble with the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London. Both were accused of scandalously neglecting the
millions of works which lie unexhibited in their collections. Many items are
said to be already beyond repair. The task of saving others would swallow
more than the museums' entire annual budget.
Meanwhile, there are millionaires in America — and, increasingly, in
Asia — who would cheerfully pay fortunes for many of these works and
would exhibit or at least preserve them. Surely then, the sensible thing would
be to sell some of them for the greater good of the majority.
There are, however, some arguments against such sales which are worth
considering. In the first place, this is the slippery slope to a time when the
Government will reckon that galleries can support themselves by these
means, and will cut subsidies still further. Desperate galleries will then start
raffling off their treasures to cover current expenses. This would of course be
a disaster.
The profit from sales must be spent only on purchase of new works or
restoration of old ones. The level of state funding should not change in
69
response to sales. Secondly, these works must be kept for reasons of
scholarship. In the Rylands Library case, the books were said to be
unnecessary second copies but they were not 'duplicates' in the strictest sense.
Scholars need to be able to lay them side by side to study their differences.
Scholars, however, have modern reproduction techniques available to them,
and in most cases have no choice but to compare works that are thousands of
miles apart. They will have to lump it.
Thirdly, it is argued, works have been bequeathed to the museums
concerned. To sell them will be illegal, or at least a breach of trust. The
answer to this is that not showing works bequeathed is in any case an implicit
breach of trust. To sell off the whole of a particular bequest would be wrong.
To sell some of it to save - and be able to display - the rest is quite justifiable.
The prospect of such sales might also ensure that givers as well as receivers
pay attention to the costs as well as the benefits of keeping a precious
collection intact.
Lastly, no one can know at a given time whether in fifty or a hundred
years a work now considered minor may not suddenly be recognized as a
masterpiece. It must be admitted, however, that the works concerned are
hardly likely to be destroyed; they will still be available for study and
reproduction.
There should certainly be some reticence about selling works by British
artists, or ones by artists few of whose works exist in Britain. But museums
cannot possibly hang onto every work of art they possess — especially in
view of the tendency of our age to swoon for an ever shorter time over what
is fashionable, then wake up and forget about it leaving last year's
masterpiece to lie gathering dust.
The melancholy truth is that Britain acquired many of its art treasures
when it was the richest country the world had ever seen. The world now sees
many richer - and the finances of museums and galleries reflect this.
I. Vocabulary List:
indignation
heirloom
acquisition
fraud
wicked
to swallow budget
incursion
intact
to reckon
to cut subsidies
to raffle off/ raffle (n)
to cover expenses
to bequeath/ bequest (n)
to pay fortunes
reticent
lump it
70
II. Vocabulary Exercises:
Ex.1. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
the level of state funding, breach of trust, to keep a collection intact,
reticence, art treasures, financially exhausted, priceless bits of art, incursion,
beyond repair, scholarship.
Ex.2. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
фамильные ценности;
разрешение; подвал; негодование;
склонность к влажности; вторжение, нашествие, приход; платить целое
состояние; стоит рассмотреть; считать, полагать; (зд.) распродавать
направо и налево; волей-неволей мириться с чем-л.; заявлены,
завещаны; нарушение доверенным лицом своих обязательств;
нетронутый (невредимый); умалчивание; терять голову.
Ex.3. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
 a valuable object given by older members of a family to younger ones
over many years or even several centuries;
 deceitful behaviour for the purpose of gain, which may be punishable
by law; dishonesty;
 very bad; evil;
 a way of making money, esp.for charity, by selling numbered tickets
of which one is chosen by chance to win a prize;
 undamaged, complete;
 the statement of being reserved;
 a grant of money towards education.
Ex.4. Translate into Russian:
1. I expressed my indignation at being unfairly dismissed. 2. This car is
my latest acquisition. 3. The judge found the man guilty of fraud. 4. The
building of the bridge swallowed the whole budget of the city. 5. I was
ready to pay fortunes for these priceless bins of arts. 6. I reckon him as a
friend among my friends. 7. That plant can support itself, that’s why the local
government has cut subsidies still further. 8. They bequeathed him a lot of
money. 9. To his indignation, Charles found that his name was not on the
list. 10. Old heirloom lace was at her throat and wrists. 11. The media was
criticized for its thoughtless incursion into the domestic grief of the family.
12. It’s the law so you can like it or lump it. 13. Only the medieval tower had
remained intact. 14. Somehow his reputation survived the scandal intact. 15.
71
She's strangely reticent about her son. 16. Hearing the news, the ladies of the
court swooned with joy.
Ex.5. Translate into English:
1. Он сказал, что был страховым агентом, но позже она поняла, что
он просто мошенник. 2. Полагаю, что он хороший политик. 3. Он
выиграл машину в лотерее. 4. Для того чтобы покрыть расходы на
покупку квартиры, ей пришлось взять кредит в банке. 5. Новость о том,
что дедушка завещал ей $5000, привела ее в полный восторг. 6. Ее
возмущение таким жестоким обращением было понятно. 7. Вся
столовая была уставлена мебелью, все предметы которой представляли
собой фамильную ценность. 8. Правительственные войска смогли
остановить вторжение повстанцев. 9. Главным призом (который
разыгрывали) карнавала был новенький Кадиллак (Cadillac). 10. При
переезде мебель не пострадала (осталась невредимой). 11. Джон всегда
был более скрытным чем его сестра.
Ex.6. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary.
III. Speaking Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. What is “wholly understandable” according to the writer?
2. What are the factors that are said to give value to heirlooms?
3. Why is it sensible, according to the writer, to sell off some works of
art?
4. Why does the writer use the term “slippery slope” to describe the
process of selling off art treasures?
5. Why might a gallery become ‘desperate’?
6. Why does the writer oppose the argument for retaining certain books
in the John Rylands Library?
7. What do you understand by the expression “They will have to lump
it”?
8. In what way might a museum be guilty of “an implicit breach of
trust”?
9. What arguments does the writer use to justify breaking up a
collection?
10. Why does the writer consider the “truth” to be “melancholy”?
Ex.2. Recall the situations from the text illustrating the Active
Vocabulary.
72
Ex.3. Say everything you can about:
 Situation with collections of books in British Museum and in the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
 Rylands Library case.
Ex.4. Make up a dialogue between the director of the National Museum
and one of the members of a governmental group proposing a new
legislation.
Ex.5. Discuss the following questions:
 Whether to permit national museums and galleries to sell their
collections of work or not.
 What the profit from such sales should be spent on?
73
SOME THEORETICAL ISSUES AND SCIENTIFIC
DISCOVERIES
Text 1
The Main Source for Survival
Earth is a water planet. And no matter how far researchers travel around
the globe, no matter how high or deep they send their probes, if they find
liquid water, they find some form of life that manages to survive.
And yet there is a cruel dichotomy about water’s nature. Liquid water
cradles life, but water in its solid crystalline form destroys it. Organisms can
roost in geysers, wallow in brine and gulp down acid, but they recoil from
ice. The rigid ordering of water molecules in ice crystals expels impurities
and tears organic tissue beyond repair. Such is the nature of ice on Earth. Yet
recent discoveries about an unusual kind of frozen water that is absent from
Earth but ubiquitous in interstellar space have inspired scientists to revive
their assumptions about ice. In its interstellar form, water ice harbour the kind
of simple organic compounds from which life arouse – and may even
encourage their formation. As a result, this interstellar ice may actually have
played an intrinsic role in the origin of life.
Uncovering the source of the organic materials that may have been the
precursors to life has long been one of the most passion inspiring quests in
origins-of-life research. For more than a decade scientists have known that
organic compounds thrive in interstellar clouds and comets. They have also
concluded that a frost rich in water ice exists everywhere in space where dust
and gas become cold enough to condense into solids – primarily into cold
molecular clouds.
Many planetary scientists have gone further, arguing that ice-bound
organics could have hitched a ride to Earth. When a cold molecular cloud
collapsed to form our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, as the theory goes,
some of the cloud’s ice would have coalesced into comets. These balls of ice
and rock could then have carried the organic compounds on a collision course
with the young Earth. After reaching the planet, the organics could have
participated in the chemical reactions from which the first living organisms
arose.
74
This scenario has offered a compelling explanation for how organic
compounds could have been delivered to Earth, but until recently no one
knew how they first formed in interstellar space. Now scrutiny of water’s
behaviour at temperatures near absolute zero has revealed that subtle changes
in the structure of the ice sparked the first association of carbon, nitrogen and
other biologically crucial elements.
I. Vocabulary list
cruel
roost
wallow
rigid
revive
intrinsic
thrive
coalesce
crucial
recoil
cradle
brine
ubiquitous
impurity
precursor
hitch
scrutiny
expel
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find mistakes in the given definitions
Scrutiny- the way of looking fast and not carefully
Precursor- smth or smb that comes after the arrival of another
Wallow- a clean place
Rigid- easy to bend
Brine- very sour water
Thrive-to grow weak
Ex.2 Guess the meaning of the given idioms (pay attention to the words
from Vocabulary list) and use them in the sentences of your
own.
From the cradle to the grave
Get hitched
Rule the roost
Ex.3 Match the synonyms
Ocean, important, expel common, precursor, forerunner, brine, crucial,
ubiquitous, dismiss
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Ex.4 Translate into Russian
1. These tasks were repetitive, lengthy and lacking any intrinsic interest.
2. Parents play a crucial role in preparing their child to school. 3. Cancer is a
cruel disease because of the suffering it causes. 4. The woman gave the car
close scrutiny before she decided to buy it. 5. The quartz radio was a
precursor of the modern radio. 6. Pigs cool off by rolling in a wallow. 7. The
government has rigid laws about paying taxes. 8. Pickles are soaked in brine.
9. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. 9. The principal expelled the
trouble-making student from school. 10. The ceremony went off without a
hitch. 11. Our plans for a long trip finally coalesced when we mapped out
exactly where to go.
Ex.5 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1.Она преднамеренно сделала несколько жестких замечаний по
поводу его вкуса в одежде. 2.Мы внимательно разглядывали вазу,
чтобы убедиться, что на ней нет трещин. 3.Они купались в деньгах и
роскоши не думая о завтрашнем дне 4.Мне нужна прочная коробка,
которая не прогнется когда я понесу в ней все эти книги. 5.Фильтр
поможет удалить разные примеси из воды.. 6.Дети окрепли прожив
лето в деревне у бабушки.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions
1. What kind of water helps us survive?
2. Why interstellar ice has played an intrinsic role in the origin of life?
3. What is the nature of ice on Earth?
4. How did the first living organisms appear?
Ex.2 Translate two last paragraphs of the text in writing
76
LAW
Text 1
Constraints
There was an early division of crimes into treason, felonies, and misdemeanors (sometimes called trespasses in the early days). High treason
consisted of taking some action designed to lead towards the killing of the
king, or levying war against the king by a subject, and of certain other acts of
disloyalty. Petty treason, finally incorporated into the law of murder in 1828,
was the killing of a husband by his wife, a master by his servant, or an
ecclesiastical superior by his cleric. Treason was always punished with
extreme severity, and followed special rules of procedure of its own. (In the
United States, treason is defined in the federal Constitution.)
Felonies at common law entailed at least the possibility of the death
penalty or mutilation, and the loss of all of the felon's property. The earliest
common law felonies were criminal homicides, rape, arson, (malicious burning
of the dwelling house of another), larceny (certain kinds of theft), and
robbery (certain thefts involving violence or intimidation). At first, all
homicides were in theory criminal, but pardons were automatic if
investigation showed accident or self-defense. Malicious killings came to be
designated as murder and other criminal killings as manslaughter. By the
fourteenth century burglary (breaking and entering, at night, the dwelling house
of another with intent to commit a felony therein) was recognized by the
courts as a felony, as was mayhem (malicious infliction of certain serious
injuries, as the loss of an arm or leg, resulting in loss of fighting ability) by
statute early in the fifteenth century. Some escapes, as where a felon broke out
of prison, were recognized as felonious at common law. Some instances of
piracy were made felonious by statutes early in the sixteenth century and are
usually regarded as common law felonies. Other common law crimes than
treason and the felonies just mentioned were misdemeanors, punishable until
modern times by fine or by whipping. After the fourteenth century imprisonment became a common punishment for all crimes, (Transportation to the
colonies was sometimes authorized for serious offenders in the eighteenth and first
half of the nineteenth centuries.) Today in the United States, by statute, felonies
and misdemeanors are often distinguished according to the maximum prison term
permitted. A year and a day is a common dividing line. Imprisonment is
provided for both felonies and misdemeanors, but the distinction has
continuing importance in such matters as the felony-murder rule and certain
principles of justification. Originally, prisons were primarily for holding
accused persons awaiting trial. Lengthy sentences of imprisonment might have
77
amounted to death sentences in the early days, when disease or starvation
might easily be the lot of the prisoner.
While in early English times the death penalty was possible upon
conviction of any felony, many in fact escaped the carrying out of the death
sentence. Pardon was sometimes available, and in some situations was almost
a matter of course.
Or the felon might reach sanctuary (an area under church protection, but
usually available only for a limited period of time) and then agree to forfeiture of
his properly for permission to abjure the realm.
I. Vocabulary list
treason
misdemeanor
ecclesiastical
homicide
arson
larceny
piracy
pardon
statute
felony
levy
cleric
rape
malicious
intimidation
starvation
mayhem
forfeiture
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find in the text the equivalents to the following words and word
combinations
Наказывается с особой жестокостью, ночное вторжение,
ограбление с применением насилия, признавался судом как, определено
конституцией, сбежать из тюрьмы, определено судом как нарушение,
для содержания обвиняемых ожидающих суда, наказание штрафом или
телесным наказанием, по закону.
Ex.2 Match the crimes and their definitions
1.Treason
a. setting fire to smth deliberately
2.Larceny
b.stealing smth using violence or threats
3.Murder
c making illegal copies of smth in order to sell them
4.Arson
d. killing smb but not deliberately
5.Robbery.
e. doing smth that could cause danger to your country
6.Piracy
f. stealing smth from smb
7.Manslaughter g. killing smb deliberately
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Ex.3 Match the synonyms
Misdemeanors, manslaughter, murder, criminal, larceny, trespasses,
theft, homicide, felon.
Ex.4 Explain the difference in the meaning of the following words
Felony-misdemeanor, manslaughter-murder, larceny-robbery, death
penalty- death sentence, high treason-petty treason.
Ex.5 Give your definitions to the following words
Crime-…
punishment-…
pardon-…
sanctuary-…
statute-…
Ex.6 Translate into Russian paying attention to your active vocabulary
1. Treason in the time of war can be punishable by death. 2. Many
children starve for love. 3. He drank too much and committed mayhem in
nearly destroying the furniture in the bar. 4. When he failed to repay the
loan, the bank repossessed his car as forfeiture. 5. The new customs levies
on travelers go into effect now. 6. The governor granted him a pardon, and
he was released from prison. 7. She longed for the sanctuary of her own
home.
Ex.7 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1.Их обвинили в запугивании людей, голосовавших на выборах.
2.Его осудили за изнасилование, в его ситуации ждать помилования дело безнадежное. 3.Миллионы людей могут столкнуться с проблемой
голода из-за продолжительной засухи этим летом. 4. Правительство
предоставило политическое убежище 4000 беженцам. 5.По законам
университета, у них не было права исключать его.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions
1. What was an early division of crimes?
2. What is different in these two crimes: high treason and petty treason?
3. What earliest common law felonies can you name?
4. How was misdemeanors punished?
79
5. When did imprisonment become a common punishment for all
crimes?
6, What were originally prisons for?
7. What do you know about the death penalty in early English times?
Ex. 2 Confirm or disapprove the following.
1. There was an early division of crimes into treason and trespasses.
2. Killing the king was a petty treason.
3. Treason was punished with extreme severity.
4. Other common law crimes were punished by fine or by whipping.
5.After the 13th century imprisonment became a common punishment
for all crimes.
Ex.3 Write your ideas about legislative system in our country.
80
PHYSIOLOGY AND DISEASES
Text 1
Smallpox
Smallpox is an acute, highly infectious disease, producing high fever
and a pinkish rash of spots which, when they dry up, leave ugly scars on the
skin. For centuries it killed rich and poor alike spreading fast when it took
hold in an area, and often seriously disfiguring or blinding those sufferers
who escaped death. It was not until 1980 that the World Health Organization
declared that the disease was eradicated.
About two hundred years ago the English physician Edward Jenner
discovered the process of vaccination which eventually offered reliable
protection and caused smallpox to disappear completely. Jenner was born in
1749 and, after studying medicine, lived and worked as a doctor in a small
village in rural Gloucestershire. Here he saw people suffering both from
smallpox and from cowpox, a weaker, much less dangerous form of infection
frequently found in cows. He made an interesting observation that the local
country people who caught cowpox because of their daily contact with cattle,
did not catch smallpox even if close friends and family were infected. By
experimenting on local people, therefore, Jenner was able to prove in 1796
that injections of the cowpox virus could provide protection against
smallpox. This process was called vaccination from vacca, the Latin word for
cow.
Although other studies were being carried out elsewhere in Britain
during the eighteenth century, Jenner made the clinical breakthrough, and the
immunity he provided against one of history's most terrifying diseases
brought him fame and fortune. Не was paid generous sums by the British
government when the authorities realized the importance of his achievement.
He was also given the freedom of the City of London in l805, an honour not
lightly granted. He died in 1823.
Smallpox was not finally wiped out, however, until almost two centuries
later. By this time vaccination had become a compulsory part of many
countries' public health programmes. It may seem surprising that Jenner's
great discovery was not fully exploited at the time. This can be partly
explained by the fact that complete eradication required a concerted effort
from all countries.
In the village of Berkeley in Gloucestershire, where Edward Jenner used
to live, there is a museum which aims to remind us of this English physician's
pioneering achievement. The lives of thousands of people have been saved by
this one man's careful observation and clinical work.
81
The onset of the last known case of smallpox was recorded in two
remote area of Ethiopia. Because man is the only known reservoir of the
smallpox virus, the disease will be eliminated forever when the last infected
person recovers. If epidemiologists of the World Health Organization
discover one, the victim will be isolated under 24-hour guard and everyone
who has been in contact with him will be vaccinated. An effort will be made
to trace the chain of infection back to a previously known, contained
outbreak. For two years after the last case is recorded the search will continue
for additional outbreaks. If none is found and if a WHO international
commission can be satisfied that the search has been thorough, it will be
declared that smallpox has been eradicated from the earth.
I. Vocabulary list
to disfigure
to take hold (of)
compulsory
to bring fame and fortune
to make breakthrough
to carry out studies
to eradicate, to wipe out
to leave ugly scars
infectious disease
acute disease
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions and use them in the sentences of your own:
коровья оспа; обезображивать, уродовать; охватывать, овладевать;
обязательный; приносить славу и богатство; сыпь; совершить прорыв;
проводить исследования; искоренять (болезнь); оставлять шрамы;
заразная болезнь; острое заболевание; вакцинация; иммунитет,
невосприимчивость; врач; приступ (болезни); вспышка заболевания.
Ex.2. Express the following in one word or phrase:
 to spoil the appearance that something naturally has;
 to completely get rid of something such as a disease or a social
problem;
 to start to have a definite effect;
 very serious, very strong;
 when an illness can be passed from one person to another, especially
through the air you breathe it is called…
 mandatory; something that must be done because it is the law or
because someone in authority orders you to.
82
Ex.3. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
 to offer reliable protection;
 to provide immunity against smth.;
 to take hold of;
 to be a compulsory part of public health programs;
 to trace the chain of disease;
 the case of smallpox;
 to make an interesting observation;
 to produce high fever and rash of spots.
Ex.4. Translate into Russian:
1. She fell on her knees taking hold on the skirt of his coat. 2. The fever
was beginning to take hold. 3. The text is disfigured by irritating errors and
sloppy proofreading. 4. It is now compulsory for anyone claiming state
benefit to register with a job centre. 5. He never really achieved the fame and
fortune he dreamed of. 6. One man's breakthrough is often another's trifling
adaptation. 7. Boston employers are facing an acute labour shortage with
potentially serious consequences for economic growth. 8. Patients with acute
lower back pain often do well with bed rest and painkillers. 9. This problem
has now been completely eradicated. 10. The fur trade has wiped leopards
out in some areas. 11. In comparison studies, babies wearing them seem to
have rash less often and less severely.
Ex.5. Translate into English:
1. Глубокое отчаяние завладело ею. 2. Его лицо было изуродовано
в результате несчастного случая. 3. Автострахование является
обязательным. 4. Все молодые люди должны проходить обязательную
службу в течение двух лет. 5. Установка индикаторов дыма является
обязательной во всех зданиях. 6. Он отправился на поиски славы и
успеха. 7. На переговорах стороны сделали прорыв в разрешении
одной из самых серьезных проблем - проблемы, касающейся гарантии
занятости. 8. Пациентам, страдающим острыми формами депрессии,
необходимо медикаментозное лечение (medication). 9. На Западе
болезнь искоренили путем вакцинации. 10. Ничто не могло стереть из
памяти (искоренить) горькие воспоминания о прошлом. 11. У моей
мамы выступает сыпь, если она ест морепродукты.
83
Ex.6. Make up a piece of news using your active vocabulary. Some
examples have been provided below:
 Be careful! A young man with a disfigured face was found dead near
the highway. His relatives said that he had set off to find fame and fortune 2
days before.
 A breakthrough was made in Omsk, Russia. A vaccine created by
young scientists helps to eradicate an acute disease that used to disfigure
people's hands.
 British scientists have made a breakthrough: they proved that in the
left hemisphere of people's brain some unknown parasites exist. Be careful!
They might take hold of your thoughts!
III. Speaking and Written Practice:
Ex.1. Answer the questions:
1.
What is smallpox and how one can identify this disease?
2.
What is the English physician Edward Jenner famous for?
3.
What is vaccination and how does it work?
4.
Did vaccination use to be compulsory? What for?
5.
Has smallpox been eliminated forever?
6.
What is WHO? What are the actions of this organization if an
infected person appears?
7.
What disease would you like to find cure from if you had a
chance? Why?
8.
How would you reward the work of outstanding physicians?
Ex.2. Say whether the following is true or false:
 In 1980 the World Health Organization declared that smallpox was
eradicated.
 Jenner experimented on cows, not people.
 Не was paid generous sums by the British government so that he could
find treatment against smallpox.
 Complete eradication of smallpox was possible only if all countries
tried to use vaccine against smallpox.
 The last known case of smallpox was recorded not far form the capital
of Ethiopia.
Ex.3. Say everything you know about:
 smallpox and cowpox;
 physician Edward Jenner and his observations;
84
 the WHO;
 vaccination and its application.
Ex.4. Choose one of the following situations and make up a dialogue:
 2 friends are exchanging their views on the problem of experimenting
on animals; on people. One of them is strongly against any experiments.
 A student (who works for a university newspaper) has an interview
with a university professor to find out what made it possible to eradicate
smallpox. He needs this information to write an article about it.
 2 students are arguing about which disease they would like to find
treatment against if they had a chance.
Ex.5. Make up a monologue (as a comprehensive answer to one of the
questions provided):
 Which disease would you like to find cure for if you had a chance?
Why?
 Can you justify experimenting on animals? Give your reasons.
 Do you think that if smallpox vaccine (or some other vaccine) is found
it should become compulsory for everyone? Why? Why not?
Ex.6. Write an email to your friend (200 words) summarizing everything
you have learnt about smallpox
85
Text 2
Madness and Creativity
For thousands of years philosophers have pondered the ties between
madness and creativity. Now this link has been examined with statistical
rigour by Professor Arnold Ludwig of Kentucky University who outlined his
findings in a new book.
Instead
of leafing through medical notes searching for clues to
genius, Prof Ludwig relies on biographies of 20th-century people reviewed in
The New York Times from 1960 to 1990. In this way he gathered the names
of 1004 poets, journalists, artists and business leaders. He analysed the extent
of mental illness in each field, examined other emotional
factors
fostering greatness, and then created a so-called template for success.
Prof Ludwig believes that genius requires a precise
blend of brain
chemicals (inherited) and environmental cues. He found that members of the
artistic professions or creative arts suffer more types of mental difficulties
and do so over longer periods of their lives than members of other
professions. He also found that 24 per cent of his sample had suffered the
death of a parent before the age of 14. A previous study of 24 British prime
ministers suggests that 63 per cent had suffered the loss of a parent by the age
of 15. The rate in the general population is 17 per cent. He concludes that
contrary to conventional expectations, not all people are permanently
devastated or damaged by such a loss.
Some 10 per cent of his samples suffer genetic disability and another 10
per cent have suffered illness for at least six months during their youth. Prof
Ludwig speculates that physical frailty, like the death of a parent, sparks an
inner angst, a feeling of inferiority that drives children to excel.
The crucial clues to genius, the heart of Prof Ludwig arguments, are
revealed in his final analysis in which he subdivides his sample to distinguish
thinkers such as Albert Einstein or even Agatha Christie from elite such as
kings.
Outstanding individuals tend to be born with talent, have creative
parents, a mentally ill mother, a tense household and a bout of physical
illness. Above all, Prof Ludwig highlights 'psychological unease' as distinct
from mental illness. "This is extremely important because unlike
past
studies that have talked about mental illness, I talk about the sense of unease
that bridges the gap between those who are normal psychologically but who
have the capacity to generate inner tension", Prof Ludwig says. This inner
tension, whether triggered by a psychiatric illness or by the death of a loved
one, encourages the budding genius to bury himself in his work sometimes at
86
the expense of his happiness. Prof Ludwig believes that true psychological
unease is the result of a variety of factors.
Now that we all have the secret of success, the real question is whether
we want to pursue it. Do we want to endure chronic inner tension to reach the
top of the carrier ladder? Do we want to bring up children who are burdened
by mental anguish? Not even the best psychiatrist can predict the path best
for you, the merry stroll of mediocrity or the emotionally draining ascent of
success. And that is why Prof Ludwig called his book The Price of Greatness.
I. Vocabulary List:
creativity
(n)
rigour(n)/rigorous (adj)
genius(sing)/genii(pl)
to foster
burden (n)(v)
clue /not have a clue
to devastate
to speculate
to excel
at the expense of
to pursue
to endure
mediocrity
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary.
Ex.2. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
to outline one’s findings, to leaf through, to search for clues, template of
success, contrary to, physical frailty, to spark an inner angst, a feeling of
inferiority, to generate inner tension
Ex.3. Find synonyms to the following words and phrases:
to ponder, greatness, conventional, permanently, crucial, outstanding, to
highlight, anguish
Ex.4. Translate into Russian:
1. Someone with creativity is needed for this job. 2. He deserves to be
punished with the full rigour of the law. 3. His latest book is a work of
genius. 4. We hope these meetings will help foster friendly relations between
our two countries. 5. Have any clues been found that can help the police to
find the criminal? 6. We can only speculate about the future. 7. She excels as
a teacher of dancing. 8. He had to repair his car at his own expense. 9. The
87
police are pursuing an escaped prisoner. 10. I can’t endure that noise any
longer. 11. I will not burden you with a lengthy account of what happened.
Ex.5. Translate into English using Active Vocabulary:
1. У нее талант к музыке. 2. Энштейн был гением. 3. Мы
заботились о маленькой девочке, пока ее мама была в больнице. 4. Ты
знаешь, когда приходит следующий поезд? Нет, у меня нет и мысли. 5.
Он пытался выглядеть умно за мой счет. 6. Путешественников
преследовали попрошайки. 7. Наша фирма была обременена
большими налогами. 8. О чем вы говорите? Он простая
посредственность, не более того.
Ex.6. Paraphrase the following sentences:
1. Who takes care of you while your parents are away?
2. She has a talent for music.
3. War destroyed the city completely.
4. He finished the job having lost his health.
5. He continues his studies at the university.
6. I can’t bear your complaints any longer.
Ex.7. Match two columns:
a) a creative person
b) to be very good at smth.
c) to follow; to chase
d) to experience and survive (pain or hardship)
e) to bring up a child that is not one’s own
f) a signal to do smth.
g) to destroy
h) to form opinions by guessing
i) a heavy load or obligation
1. to pursue
2. burden
3. to endure
4. to foster
5. cue
6. creativity
7. to devastate
8. to excel
9. to speculate
III. Speaking Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. What does genius require?
2. What did Prof Ludwig discover?
3. How does the death of parents influence children, relatives?
4. What is the difference between madness and creativity?
5. Is it possible to be born a genius or a mediocrity?
88
Ex.2. Recall the situations from the text illustrating the Active
Vocabulary.
Ex.3. Make up a dialogue between:
 Prof Ludwig and a journalist;
 Prof Ludwig and one of the members of the artistic family.
Ex.5. Retell the story as if you were:
 Prof Ludwig;
 As it is;
 A journalist.
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Text 3
Quarantine
When plague was travelling across Europe in 1348 the authorities in
Venice became more and more nervous as the new and terrible disease got
closer to the city. They had no idea what to do, and in the end consulted the
city's astrologers. The astrologers suggested putting all travellers to Venice,
together with their vehicles and ships, on an isolated island and leaving them
there for some time. The astrologers didn't know how long they should stay
there, and so they consulted the stars and came to the conclusion that forty
days would be the best period.
Starting from 30 March 1348 all travellers, ships and vehicles coming to
Venice had to stay on the island, and they were only allowed into Venice
after they had been on the island for forty days without developing plague.
Other cities like Milan and Marseilles copied Venice in keeping travellers out
of the city for a magic period of forty days. The word 'quarantine', based on
the Italian for 'forty', is now used in many languages to describe isolation for
people who may have contagious disease.
I. Vocabulary list
Plague
astrologer
conclusion
disease
contagious
vehicle
base on
suggest
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Give your definitions to the given words and word combinations
Plague, astrologers, vehicle, isolated island, contagious disease.
Ex.2 Using an English-English Dictionary give your explanation to 5
words or word combinations from your vocabulary list and
ask other students from your group to express each
explanation in one word.
Ex.3 Guess the meaning of the given idioms (pay attention to the words
from Vocabulary list) and use them in the sentences of your
own.
Avoid smb/smth like the plague
90
Leap to the conclusion
At/ on smb’s suggestion
Ex.4 Translate into Russian
1. Rock stars have to get used to being plagued by autograph hunters.
2.His enthusiasm was so contagious. 3.Millions of people believe in
astrology and read their horoscopes made by astrologers to know what might
happen in future. 4.Art may be used as a vehicle of propaganda. 5. Greed is
a disease of modern society. 6. A solution immediately suggested itself to
me. 7. He was young and highly suggestible.
Ex.5 Translate into English.
1.Я пришла к заключению, что он не тот человек, который нужен
для выполнения этой работы. 2. На чем ты основываешь эту теорию?
3.Ее смех был так заразителен, что мы не могли не рассмеяться.
4.Астрологи – люди, которые используют астрологию, чтобы
рассказать человеку о его судьбе.
5. Из-за припаркованного
транспорта на узких улочках часто создаются пробки и движение
замедляется. 6. Встречи и разговора с ней он избегал как чумы.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions
1. What happened in Europe in 1348?
2. Why were the authorities in Venice so nervous?
3. What was the decision of the authorities in Venice?
4. How was the best period of isolation chosen?
5. What was the place of isolation?
6. What is the original meaning of the word ‘guarantine’?
7. What is the meaning of the word ‘guarantine’ nowadays?
Ex.2 Find wrong facts in the text
The plague was travelling across Europe in 1438. The authorities in
Venice became nervous and they consulted city’s doctors. They decided to
put all the travelers to Venice on an isolated island for 30 days. Other cities
like Milan and Madrid copyied Venice in keeping travelers out of the city for
that magic period of time. From that time the word ‘guarantine’, based on the
Spanish for ‘forty’ is used to describe isolation.
Ex. 3 Translate the text into Russian in writing.
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Text 4
Alchemy and Alchemists
Primitive man found out by trial and error how to carry out a certain
number of simple chemical changes, but under the ancient Egyptian
civilization men learned how to work copper, tin, iron and precious metals;
how to make pottery, glass, soap and colouring agents and how to bleach and
dye textile fabrics. These arts were the beginnings of the chemical industries
of today. The early scientific study of chemistry, known as alchemy, grew up
in the first few centuries AD at Alexandria in Egypt. There two important
things came together: one was the practical knowledge of the Egyptian
workers in metals, pottery and dyes; the other was the learning of the earlier
Greek philosophers such as Hippocrates and Aristotle. At the same time
alchemy was much influenced by ideas from the East about magic and
astrology –foretelling the future from the stars.
Greek philosophers regarded debate about the nature of matter as
superior to experiment and some held that all matter was made up of the
same four ‘elements’: earth, fire, air and water. Many people therefore
thought that if these elements could be rearranged, one substance could be
changed into another. For instance, a base metal could perhaps be turned into
gold. The chief aim of the alchemists was to find a way of doing this.
Alchemy came under Arab influence when the armies of Islam
conquered Egypt during the seventh century. The Arabs carried its study into
Western Europe when they advanced into Spain. Many Arabic words are still
used in chemistry: ‘alkali’, ‘alcohol’ and even ‘alchemy’ itself which means
‘the art of Egypt’. The greatest Arab alchemist was Jabir ibn Hayyan,
possibly the same person as Geber, author of two important books on
alchemy known from the Latin translations of the thirteenth century. Jabir
claimed that mercury and sulphur were ‘elements’ like the four Greek ones.
He said that all metals were composed of mercury and sulphur in different
proportions. To change a base metal into gold required the proportions to be
changed by the action of a mysterious substance which came to be called ‘the
philosopher’s stone’. Alchemists searched in vain for this substance for
several hundred years.
Alchemy was studied widely in Europe during the twelfth and following
centuries and attracted the attention of many learned men. Though they were
doomed to fail in their attempts to make gold, their work led to the growth of
a great deal of new chemical knowledge and of methods of making
experiments. Many of the later European alchemists, however, were complete
frauds who preyed upon trusting people by all sorts of tricks, and the subject
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fell into disrepute. By the first half of the sixteenth century the aim of the
alchemists had changed from the making of gold to the making of medicines.
In particular, they sought a fanciful substance called ‘the elixir of life’, a
powerful medicine which was to cure all ills and which would turn out to be
the same substance as ‘the philosopher’s stone’. This phase of chemistry
lasted until 1700.
I. Vocabulary List
to find out by trial and error
to bleach
to dye/dye (n)
to foretell
superior
to rearrange
substance
to come under influence
to conquer
to compose of smth.
in vain
to doom
fraud
to fall into disrepute
fanciful
to cure
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1 Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
mercury, sulphur, copper, tin, iron, mysterious substance, to lead to the
growth, to make experiments, colouring agent
Ex.2 Find synonyms to the following words and phrases:
to seek smth., to cure, fanciful, fabric, to foretell
Ex3. Translate into Russian:
1. The skeletons of dead cattle were bleaching in the sun. 2. No one
could have foretold such a freak accident. 3. They fought with great courage
against a superior force of invaders. 4. The meeting has been rearranged for
Tuesday. 5. The wood is coated with a special substance that protects it from
the sun. 6. The tribes were easily conquered by the Persian armies. 7. The
song was specially composed for their wedding. 8. Did all these young men
die in vain? 9. She felt she was doomed to work in an office all her life. 10.
The whole research programme was an elaborate fraud. 11. What a fanciful
suggestion! 12. It might be several months before she’s fully cured.
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Ex.4. Translate into English using Active Vocabulary:
1. Солнце обесцветило его волосы. 2. Мы уважали сверхзнания
Билла в данной области. 3. Он отказался обсуждать содержание
встречи. 4. Альпинисты покорили еще 6 вершин. 5. Он сел и составил
заявление об увольнении. 6. Мы прошли пешком несколько миль,
безуспешно пытаясь найти извозчика. 7. Полиция расследует случай
мошенничества. 8. Многие раннее неизлечимые болезни сейчас могут
быть излечены.
III. Speaking Practice
Ex.1 Select the answer which is the most accurate according to the
information given in the text:
1. Primitive man
A. knew nothing about chemistry
B. succeeded in carrying out a few chemical processes
C. failed to carry out any chemical processes
D. knew how to work copper and make pottery
2. The practical basis of several modern chemical industries was
developed
A. by the ancient Egyptians
B. by prehistoric man
C. even before the ancient Egyptian civilization
D. in the nineteenth century
3. The ancient Greeks
A. were superior to the Egyptians in chemical experiments
B. were more fond of discussing theories than doing practical work
C. were not interested in chemistry
D. taught the Egyptians to work metal, pottery and dyes
4. Early alchemists tried to change
A. the element fire into water
B. all four elements into mercury
C. the future using the stars
D. inexpensive metals into gold
5. The Arab conquerors
A. took alchemy to Egypt
B. spread alchemy to Western Europe
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C. learned “the art of Egypt” in Spain
D. overran the whole of Western Europe
6. Jabir ibn Hayyan
A. extended the Greek theories about the “elements”
B. claimed that all metals were composed of four “elements”
C. discovered “the philosopher’s stone”
D. wrote two important books on mathematics
7. From the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries alchemy was
A. successful on its objectives
B. a somewhat disreputable study
C. not studied
D. the most respected branch of philosophy
8 Later alchemists
A. changed gold into medicine
B. changed “the philosopher’s stone” into medicine
C. directed their ambitions from gold to medicine
D. perfected the “elixir of life”
Ex.2 Explain the meaning of the following:
- AD;
- “the philosopher’s stone”;
- “the elixir of life”.
Ex.3 Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. Where and when did alchemy appear?
2. What ideas influenced alchemy?
3. What are the four elements of alchemy?
4. What was the main aim of alchemists?
5. Who was the greatest Arab alchemist and what can you say about his
ideas?
6.What are pros and cons of alchemy? Can it be called a science?
7. How did alchemy influence other sciences?
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Text 5
Great Discovery
In 1928 Sir Alexander Fleming noted, after accidentally leaving a dish
of staphylococcus bacteria uncovered, that some common green mould had
grown among bacteria. As the mould grew, it formed a liquid which
destroyed the nearby microbe-colonies. Fleming tried this liquid out on other
types of bacteria and found that some were dissolved while others were left
unharmed. He named the fluid 'penicillin', unaware that his chance discovery
was to have tremendous consequences.
Fleming realized that penicillin had great antiseptic qualities, but the
active principle in the mould was too unstable and difficult to extract. For a
time, the only practical purpose of penicillin was to separate different types
of bacteria from each other.
Ten years passed before any serious attempt was made to produce
penicillin from liquid cultures of mould. Two scientists, Howard Florey and
Ernst Chain, carried out a great number of experiments and eventually
succeeded in deriving a yellow powder from the liquid. The powder was
crude and full of impurities; but it was a hundred times more active than the
original discovery. It was found to possess two very important properties: it
annihilated bacteria and did not harm body-tissues when applied locally to
cuts and wounds. The next step was to find out whether penicillin could be
introduced into the bloodstream and so be carried to every part of the body.
When experiments were made with mice, penicillin acted in the same way in
blood as it had done in water: the bacteria were killed and the blood-cells
remained unaffected. The time had now arrived to see whether this powerful
antiseptic could be used to combat human disease. Even though tests proved
extremely difficult because only small amounts of the substance could be
produced under laboratory conditions, results were miraculous. The
remaining problem was to produce penicillin in large quantities. Because of
the war, it was impossible for Britain to embark on large-scale production,
and Florey was obliged to go to America. Soon sufficient qualities were
available to effect a low mortality-rate among battle casualties. After the war
penicillin came into general use.
Fleming has taken his place among the great benefactors of mankind.
That the mould had grown by chance is of no coincidence. What matters is
that he was there to observe it. Without his presence, this 'chance' would have
gone undetected and might never have occurred again.
I. Vocabulary list
96
mould
fluid
extract
annihilate
combat
benefactor
dissolve
unstable
derive
wound
embark (on)
coincidence
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Give definitions of the lexical units
Try smth out on smth
To be dissolved
To be left unharmed
Tremendous consequences
To be unstable
to carry out
to be full of impurities
to be applied to
the remaining problem
to come into general use
Ex.2 Study the use of the active vocabulary in the sentences below and
translate them into Russian.
1. A clay mould is used for casting bronze statues. 2. The word ‘politics’
is derived from a Greek word meaning ‘city’. 3. She is about to embark on a
diplomatic career. 4. The duty of police is to combat any kind of crime. 5.
She annihilated her opponent who failed to win a single game. 6. After a
serious argument, it can take some time for the wounds to heal. 7. Heat
gently until sugar dissolves completely. 8. She danced with great fluidity of
movements. 9. Extensive tests have been carried out on the patient. 10. He
derived great pleasure from painting. 11. I suppose your presence here today
is not entirely coincidental
Ex.5 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1. Врач сказал ей пить больше жидкости. 2. Нам нужен меценат,
который своими средствами сделал бы наши способности заметными
для большего количества людей. 3. Эта нестабильная ситуация не дает
уверенности. 4. По счастливому совпадению событий мы встретились.
5. Она приступит к исполнению обязанностей через неделю 6. Он был
задет за живое ее резкими репликами в его адрес.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1Answer the questions
1. What was the invention of Sir Alexander Fleming?
2. What was the main quality of penicillin?
97
3. What was the practical purpose of penicillin for a long time?
4. Who succeeded in producing penicillin in a powder form?
5. What were the advantages and disadvantages of the early penicillin?
6. What was the next step of Florey and Chain’s experiments?
7. Why was it difficult to provide tests?
8. When did penicillin come into general use?
Ex.2 Confirm or disprove the following.
1. Sir Alexander Fleming made his invention in 1838.
2. The grown mould destroyed all the microbes around it.
3. When Fleming tried this liquid out on other types of bacteria, he
found out that all of them were dissolved.
4. 10 months later two scientists, Florey and Chain, made an attempt to
produce penicillin from liquid.
5. They derived a powder from liquid, which was a thousand times more
active than the origin.
6. Being in bloodstream, penicillin kills bacteria but the blood cells
remained the same.
Ex.3 Say or write everything you have known about the importance of
penicillin and the story of its discovery.
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INTERESTING FACTS
Text 1
Why do we need sleep?
Most people seem to need about eight hours' sleep a day and curious and
disturbing things begin to happen when the ratio is reduced. The fact that
sleep is essential to life has been known for hundreds of years. A physiologist
in the last century demonstrated that puppies would die if kept awake for
more than five days. More recent experiments carried out on people show
that sleep deprivation produces profound psychological disturbances
including delusions, disorientation and a state of panic or depression.
Why do we need sleep? It is easy enough to say that our cells and
specifically the cells of our brain need rest in order to recover from the
stresses and strains of the waking day but 'rest' is a term that leaves some
basic questions unanswered. Muscle cells are just as much at rest when we
are lolling in an armchair watching television as when we fast asleep in bed
dreaming of our true love or the bullying boss at the office. Think of the vivid
impression you probably retain of a few recent dreams and you will be fairly
satisfied that our brain cells can be just as active during sleep as they are
when we sit at the office desk.
Within the past few years a number of fascinating studies have
suggested that sleep is a sort of regular care and maintenance period essential
to the continued function of the brain and that dreaming is a part of the
maintenance process. Experimental psychologists have found that a high
proportion of our sleeping time is occupied in dreaming and that dream
periods are marked by rapid movements of the eyeballs. This fact was
established by waking sleepers up when the characteristic flicker of the eyes
was observed and finding that they almost invariably reported an interrupted
dream: the subjects of the same experiment woken during quiet periods
merely describe a return to consciousness out of sweet oblivion. The next
stage of these investigations yielded surprisingly unexpected results. Two
groups of slumbering volunteers were compared. Some were deprived of
dreaming time by being woken only during dream periods; the others were
made to do without an equal amount of sleep but were shaken awake only
while in the dreamless state. Subjects who had their dreams interrupted for
nights on end quite soon began to show acute distress symptoms similar to
those experienced by people denied sleep altogether, but the others whose
sleep had been equally curtailed were not affected. Strangest of all, when the
dream-deprived subjects were finally allowed to sleep peacefully they
dreamed continuously. They seemed to be trying to repay a 'dream-debt'.
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This sort of experiment has lead to the mysterious idea that our main
purpose in sleeping is in fact to dream. One theory about this compares the
brain to a computer. A computer must have off-duty spells during which the
mass of information programmed into it is sorted and revised. The suggestion
is that the brain needs similar periods of freedom from absorbing information
so that it can, so to speak, digest one lot — by sorting, classifying, integrating
and discarding various items and impressions — before facing the assault of
another encyclopedic day. The dream is supposed to be the apparently
irrational series of pictures which flash on to the screen during the sorting
process. Whatever the truth of the matter (and clearly much is not yet fully
understood) it seems quite certain that we need to dream just as surely as we
need to eat and breath and we abstain at our peril.
I. Vocabulary list
ratio
delusion
loll
fascinating
flicker
consciousness
yield
deprive
deny
discard
abstain
deprivation
strain
bully
maintenance
invariable
oblivion
slumber
acute
curtail
assault
peril
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Match the given definitions with the words from Vocabulary list
 The state of being able to use your senses
 A time when smb is asleep
 To refuse to accept or admit smth
 To choose not to use a vote either for or against smb or smth
 To frighten or hurt weaker person
 To lie, sit or stand in a relaxed way
 A false belief
 A crime of attacking sb
 The state in which sb or smth has been forgotten
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Ex.2 Make up 5 sentences using Active Vocabulary
Ex.3 Translate into Russian
1. He is a total abstainer, he abstained from alcohol. 2. He refused to
give in to bullying and threats. 3. They were imprisoned and deprived of their
basic rights. 4. A smile flickered across her face. 5. Her face was weary as
their relations were strained and they couldn’t cope with stresses of their
family life. 6. Don’t go getting delusions of your grandeur! 7. Because of
world crisis nowadays competitions for any well paid job is acute. 8. She
could now discard all thought of promotion. 9. A significant number of
indecent assaults on women go unreported. 10. Most of important inventions
have been consigned to oblivion. 11. Higher-rate deposit accounts yield good
returns.
Ex.4 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1.Меня не заставят ничего подписать насильно. 2.Что заставила
тебя лишить себя всех удовольствий роскошного отдыха? 3.Он
расслабленно откинулся в кресло, глядя на мерцающий экран
телевизора. 4. Интересно, каково соотношение мужчин и женщин в
нашем обществе? 5. Вся комната была завалена ненужными газетами и
журналамы, купленными много лет назад. 6. В 1941 году 22 июня
нападение фашистской Германии на Советский Союз было начато
ранним утром. 7. Из-за сложного экономического положения в мире
экономика многих стран находится в опасности.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions
1. Why do people need 8 hour’s sleep a day?
2. What did a physiologist demonstrate in the last century?
3. Why do we need sleep?
4. What can sleep deprivation produce?
5. What are the discoveries of experimental psychologists?
6. What experiment was done with two groups of slumbering
volunteers?
7. What were their results with two groups of slumbering volunteers?
8. What is the mysterious idea of the main purpose in sleeping?
9. Our brain can be compared to a computer, can’t it?
10. What is the dream supposed to be?
101
Ex.2 Complete the sentences according to the text and comment them.
1. When the ratio of sleeping period is reduced….
2. According to some scientific research, any creatures can die if they
keep awake…..
3. Delusions, disorientation, depression and a state of panic are caused
by…
4. Our brain need rest in order to….
5. Dream periods are marked by…
6. Our main purpose of sleeping is…..
7. Our dreams are supposed to be…
8. We need to dream as surely as…
Ex.3 Make up a dialogue between
- a physiologist and a workaholic
- a heavy sleeper and a person who suffers from sleep disorder
Ex.4 Say everything you know about the importance of sleep and
oblivion
Ex.5 Translate the last paragraph of the text
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Text 2
Plants Can Recognize, Communicate With Relatives.
Plants have family values, too, it seems, with new research suggesting
they can recognize close relatives in order to work together. An ability to tell
family from strangers is well known in animals, allowing them to cooperate
and share resources, but plants may possess similar social skills, scientists
believe.
Susan Dudley and Amanda File of McMaster University in Ontario,
Canada, report they have demonstrated for the first time that plants can
recognize their kin. This suggests that plants, though lacking cognition and
memory, are capable of complex social interactions. "Plants have this kind of
hidden but complicated social life," Dudley said. The study found plants from
the same species of beach-dwelling wildflower grew aggressively alongside
unrelated neighbors but were less competitive when they shared soil with
their siblings.
Sea rocket, a North American species, showed more vigorous root
growth when planted in pots with strangers than when raised with relatives
from the same maternal family, the study found. This is an example of kin
selection, a behavior common in animals in which closely related individuals
take a group approach to succeeding in their environment, the researchers
said.
Kin selection also applies to competition, the scientists added, because if
family members compete less with each other, the group will do better
overall. "Everywhere you look, plants are growing right up next to other
plants," Dudley said. “Usually it's a case of each plant for itself ”, she said.
"But sometimes those plants are related, and there are benefits to not wasting
resources on being competitive," Dudley said. "And there is not really a cost
to not being competitive as long as your neighbor is also not being
competitive."
More recent, still unpublished research by Dudley's team suggests other
plants besides sea rocket show similar behavior. “In addition to restraining
root growth, such plants may also develop different stem lengths in the
presence of siblings. But how the plants determine which of their neighbors
are siblings remains a mystery”, Dudley said.
Learning and memory appear to be important for kin recognition in
animals, but this isn't an option for plants. Some researchers speculate that
plants communicate through their roots, identifying themselves using tiny
chemical signatures specific to each plant's family.
The new study may have important implications for agriculture, since
competition between plants can reduce crop yields. Planting more
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cooperative siblings together instead of strangers could theoretically mean
better harvests. The research adds to other recent studies that plants are much
better communicators than are generally thought. For example, some species
react to attacks by leaf-munching insects by producing chemicals that attract
wasps that prey on the unwanted bugs. But scientists have been puzzled to
find that neighboring plants not being eaten by the insects send out similar
calls for help. In a separate recent study from Kyoto University in Japan,
researchers have found that this may be evidence of an additional SOS sent
out by insect-ridden plants. Plants being eaten signaled their nearby siblings,
which responded by putting out their own distress "messages," the Kyoto
research suggested. "We hypothesized that plants have evolved to emit a
secondary signal to help nearby relatives by promoting the recruitment of
natural enemies [of the pest insects]," wrote Yutaka Kobayashi and Norio
Yamamura in the latest issue of the journal Evolutionary Ecology.
Plants are also known to be able to identify close relatives to guard
against inbreeding. They have self-incompatibility mechanisms where they
recognize pollen. This stops them from being fertilized by their own pollen or
by a plant that shares its genes.
I. Vocabulary List:
kin (n)
to lack
cognition (adj)
species (n) (pl.species)
competitive
siblings
vigorous (adj)
benefit (n)
to restrain
tiny
crop (n;v)
yield (n;v)
harvest
to prey on
inbreeding (n)
to fertilize
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary
Ex.2. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
to have family values; to share resources; to be capable of; social
interactions; hidden social life; to share soil; to plant in pots; maternal family;
to succeed in one’s environment; to develop different stem length; to
speculate; to attract wasps; insect-ridden plants; to emit; pollen; selfincompatibility mechanism
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Ex.3.Give as many synonyms as you can:
yield; tiny; to plant; vigorous; kin; benefit; to speculate
Ex.4. Translate into Russian:
1. His next of kin was told of his death. 2. The plants lacked water. 3.
The competitive nature of business is known all over the world. 4. His
vigorous speech inspired his company to work much harder during these
difficult times. 5. She had the benefit of a good education. 6. If you can’t
restrain your dog from biting people you must lock him up. 7. Wheat is a
widely grown crop in Britain. 8. A tiger is a beast of prey. 9. Bees fertilize
the flowers.
Ex.5. Translate into English using Active Vocabulary:
1. Нам очень не хватало одежды, еды и воды. 2. Познание
происхождения мира - задача на которую до сих пор не дано точного
ответа. 3. В ботаническом саду можно увидеть большое разнообразие
растений, т.е. их различные виды. 4. Джек и Том были братья с
богатой родословной. 5. Я сделал это для его же блага. 6. Он ненавидел
ограниченность жизни в маленьком городе. 7. Он рассматривал эту
крошечную монету уже полчаса. 8. Его бизнес приносит большие
доходы.
III. Speaking Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. How do plants communicate?
2. What can be said about Sea Rocket, a North American species?
3. What is better: to be planted right up next to siblings or to strangers?
4. How do plants react to attacks from insects?
5. What stops plants from being fertilized by the plant from the same
maternal family?
Ex.2. Recall the situations from the text illustrating the Active
Vocabulary.
Ex.3. Say everything you can about:
 Sea Rocket
 Communication of plants
 Plants’ reaction to attacks from insects
 Guarding against inbreeding
105
Ex.4. Make up a dialogue between a scientist researcher of plants and a
publisher.
Ex.5. Retell the story as if you were:
 A scientific researcher;
 A publisher;
 An insect;
 A plant .
Ex.6. Discuss the following:
There’s been a bad harvest of potatoes this year. Discuss the possible
reasons.
106
Text 3
Cicadas as Food: Summer's Low-Fat Snack?
High-protein, low-carb dieters take note: The billions of cicadas
emerging from the ground in the midwestern U.S. are a healthy alternative to
that bacon double-cheeseburger without the bun. "They're high in protein,
low in fat, no carbs," said Gene Kritsky, a biologist and cicada expert at the
College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio. They're quite nutritious, a
good set of vitamins.
Billions of periodical cicadas, known as Brood XIII, are beginning to
crawl out of the ground and to carpet trees in the midwestern United States.
Soon Brood XIII will be gone—not to be heard from again for 17 years.
Cicadas spend most of their lives underground sucking sap from tree roots.
The plant-based diet gives them a green, asparagus-like flavor, especially
when eaten raw or boiled, according to Kritsky.
Crayfish, lobsters, crabs, and shrimp are part of the same biological
phylum as insects, Jadin, an entomology graduate student at the University
of Maryland notes in her brochure ”Cooking and Enjoying Periodical
Cicada." She said the recipe she most wanted to try is chocolate-covered
cicada. "I like chocolate, and chocolate-covered insects are common
worldwide," she said. "We'll see how comparable they are to chocolatecovered crickets."
Eating insects for food is common throughout the world and dates back
thousands of years. For example, in parts of Africa scarab beetles are
considered a delicacy.
Jadin's brochure begins with a disclaimer from the University of
Maryland asking would-be cicada eaters to first consult a doctor because, like
all foods, certain individuals may have an allergic reaction. Despite the
warning, Jadin said there is no evidence to suggest that cicadas are unsafe to
eat. Her only concern was with cicadas that emerge in areas heavily treated
with pesticides and herbicides, as the insects could have absorbed the
chemicals into their bodies. Eaten in moderation, cicadas are a good source of
protein (about the same amount pound per pound as red meat) and are full of
vitamins and minerals.
Cicada Preparation
Aspiring cicada gourmands should begin by collecting the raw
ingredients.
The insects are best eaten just after the nymphs break open their skins
but before they turn black and hard. They are best collected in the early
morning hours, just after the insects emerge from the ground but before they
crawl up trees, where they are harder to reach. If these cicadas are
107
unavailable, the next best menu item is adult females—their bellies are fat
and full of nutritious eggs. Adult males, however, offer little to eat. More
crunch than munch, the males' abdomens are hollow.
With raw cicadas in hand, preparation is a matter of chef's choice. "Most
people like them deep fried and dipped in a sauce like a hot mustard or
cocktail sauce," Kritsky said. Other people boil or blanch them. Cicadas take
on a "nutty" flavor when roasted. Many cicada recipes call for a lot of spices
and sauce, which usually wind up being the dominant flavors.
I. Vocabulary list
protein
carbohydrate (carb)
nutritious
to crawl
to emerge
to eat raw/boiled/fried
to treat with pesticides and herbicides
hollow
abdomen
to take on
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Find in the text the following expressions and give Russian
equivalents for them:
to crawl out of the ground; to carpet trees; to emerge from the ground; to
be high in protein; to be low in fat; to suck sap from tree roots; to eat raw; to
eat boiled; recipe; chocolate-covered insect; to have an allergic reaction; to
treat with pesticides and herbicides; to absorb the chemicals into their bodies;
to turn black and hard; hollow abdomen; to dip in a sauce; to take on a flavor.
Ex.2. Write down words and expressions (take advantage of the
expressions from ex. 1) that can help you to:
 speak about cicadas as food;
 describe their way of living;
 dwell on the ways they can be cooked.
Ex.3. Explain the meaning of the following word-combinations: hollow
cheeks; hollow sound, hollow tree, hollow tube, hollow victory,
hollow promises.
Ex.4. Express the following in one word or phrase:
 full of the natural substances that your body needs to stay healthy or to
grow properly;
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 one of several natural substances that exist in food such as meat, eggs,
and beans, and which your body needs in order to grow and remain strong
and healthy;
 to appear or come out from somewhere ;
 a substance that is in foods such as sugar, bread, potatoes etc, which
provides your body with heat and energy and which consists of oxygen,
hydrogen, and carbon;
 the end part of an insect's body, joined to the thorax;
 having an empty space inside;
 to begin to have a particular quality or appearance;
 to put a special chemical substance on something in order to protect it
from e. g. weed;
 to put uncooked food in your mouth and chew and swallow it.
Ex.5. Translate into Russian:
1. Glover would crawl out after him on the roof at the top of the house
and look down on the lake. 2. Black widow venom affects the muscles, and
may cause severe cramping in the abdomen and other parts of the body. 3.
The walls are made of hollow concrete blocks. 4. It can only obtain it by
eating animal proteins. 5. Carbohydrate foods do indeed have a tendency to
produce a rebound hunger. 6. Not only is it known to be extremely nutritious
but it too has special protective properties against illness. 7. She emerged
from the divorce a stronger person. 8. Like all foods, certain individuals may
have an allergic reaction if they eat cicadas raw. 9. We never treat our
vegetable garden with pesticides or insecticides and this is the wonderful
result. 10. Don't take on too much work - the extra cash isn't worth it
Ex.6. Translate into English:
1. У этих насекомых на брюшке не могут располагаться ни крылья,
ни ножки. 2. Несмотря на то, что он смертельно устал, он выполз из
кровати и попытался подойти к двери. 3. Они победили, но победа того
не стоила. 4. Кальмар – исключительно питательный и полезный
продукт, поскольку содержит много белка (протеина). 5. Исследования
подтвердили тот факт, что если употреблять в пищу больше углеводов
и меньше жиров, можно эффективно терять вес. 6. В аэропорту мы
ждали когда пассажиры, прилетевшие из Москвы, появятся из дверей
таможенного пункта. 7. Если Вы питаетесь нерегулярно, то в перерывах
между основными приемами пищи ешьте фрукты и овощи, которые не
подвергались тепловой обработки. 8. Считается, что обработка полей
гербицидами позволит уменьшить количество сорняков, однако, на
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практике этого не происходит. 9. Жареные цикады приобретают
привкус ореха.
Ex.7. Make up 5 sentences of your own.
III. Speaking and Written Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following questions:
1. Can cicadas be named a food for dieters? Why? Why not?
2. Why aren’t we going to hear about Brood XIII again for 17 years?
3. What kinds of insect are best as a food?
4. How do gourmands get cicadas cooked?
5. What recipe is the best one? Which one do you favor?
6. Why eating cicadas can turn out to be dangerous?
7. How do you understand the phase: ‘More crunch than munch’?
8. What might be your arguments if you wanted to encourage your
friend to eat cicadas?
Ex.2. Make up a dialogue between a gourmet who tries to persuade people
that cicadas is the best food that they can ever eat and a person
who has never eaten anything weird but is looking for something
new to taste. Make sure that you are going to discuss all the pluses
and minuses of such a menu.
Ex.3. Make up a plan of the text and retell it using the words and
expressions from your active vocabulary.
Ex.4. Render into English using the vocabulary studied:
Первые сведения о том, что цикады вкусны, получили еще
английские колонисты от местных индейцев, которые один раз в 17 лет
собирали их, готовили и ели с большим удовольствием. Колонисты,
хотя и считали цикад саранчой, однако следовать примеру индейцев не
спешили. То ли дело сейчас. Газеты печатают рецепты блюд из цикад,
гурманы с их страниц советуют, как лучше делать заготовки впрок
(оказывается, лучше всего просто замораживать), а один вашингтонский
ресторан собирался предлагать своим посетителям закуску из цикад по
10 долларов за блюдо, но в последний момент почему-то передумал.
А в соседнем с Вашингтоном штате Мэриленд была-таки устроена
дегустация жареных цикад, причем на самом высоком уровне.
Заместитель министра сельского хозяйства Мэриленда Джон Брукс, по
профессии ветеринар, провозгласил, что жареные цикады это —
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«гастрономический восторг». «Очень вкусными» назвал их
специальный помощник губернатора Джон Мотц, который. Сам
губернатор на дегустацию не явился, и я его понимаю. Лягушек ел,
улитками восторгаюсь, а вот на цикад не решился. С чужих слов могу
лишь сообщить, что, по мнению одних, они на вкус напоминают
фисташки, а, по мнению других, — спаржу. Кому больше верить, не
знаю. Возможно, все зависит от рецепта приготовления. Поскольку в
России такого изобилия цикад, как в США, не предвидится, рецепты не
привожу.
Гурманы, в первую очередь, конечно, из числа лесных жителей, для
цикад угрозы не представляют. Вопреки наставлению Суворова брать
не числом, а умением, они берут именно числом, пренебрегая защитной
окраской. Сколько бы и кто бы их ни ел, насекомых не убывает.
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Text 4
Humans Wear Diverse "Wardrobe" of Skin Microbes
The billions of microscopic critters that cloak your skin are a bit like
fashionable threads—the ones you're wearing today may be out by next
season.
That's the implication of a new study, which identified more than 240
distinct microbes on the forearms of six healthy people. Each person's
"wardrobe" of germs seems to be as unique as his or her sense of style. No
two volunteers had all the same microbes on their flesh, though they did have
some overlap, said study leader Martin J. Blaser. "There's a lot of variation
from person to person—tremendous variation," said Blaser, a microbiologist
and infectious disease doctor at the New York University School of
Medicine. But a preserved set of organisms was found, which’s pretty
consistent." People's microbial outfits seem to be coordinated: Left and right
arms matched in any given test. But volunteers who were tested repeatedly
showed little similarity among the microbes they sported from one time to
another. "The skin is an extremely complex ecosystem affected by our
environment," Blaser said. "When we change our soap or shampoo or laundry
detergent, when we change whether we're wearing a cotton shirt or a wool
shirt, all of these are going to have an effect on our skin flora," he said.
Wardrobe Malfunction?
For their study, Blaser and three colleagues probed small skin samples
from the six volunteers and found 1,221 signatures of nonhuman DNA. From
these they identified 182 distinct species, some of which are new to science.
Eight to ten months later they retested four subjects and found 65 additional
species.
Blaser and other experts want to know whether certain skin microbes are
connected to chronic inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis and eczema—
which would make the critters our skin's version of a wardrobe malfunction.
David A. Relman is a microbiologist at Stanford University and chief of
infectious diseases at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, California said “A lot of
skin diseases look as if they ought to be caused by an infectious agent. But
we don't have an infectious agent to blame”.
Relman suggests that "orchestrated manipulation" of the skin's
ecosystem, perhaps with science-based cosmetic products, might someday
suppress disease-causing skin bacteria and nurture friendly ones. "A better
understanding of the indigenous microbiota of the human body," he said,
"will lead to much more prudent strategies for maintaining and restoring
health."
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I. Vocabulary list
critter
forearms
overlap
inflammatory
suppress
indigenous
germ
cloak
flesh
outfit
malfunction
nurture
prudent
threads
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions.
Модная одежда, хронические воспалительные заболевания,
инфекционные заболевания, подавлять рост бактерий, вызывающих
кожные заболевания, благоразумные методы поддержания здоровья,
подвергающийся влиянию окружающей среды
Ex.2 Explain the meaning of the numbers used in the text.
6, 1221, 6, 182, 1000 000 000s, 65, 2, 3, 8-10
Ex.3 Translate into Russian.
1. It is known that kangaroo is indigenous to Australia. 2. They wanted
their meeting to be cloaked in mystery. 3 The strength of this article is that it
puts flesh on the bare bones of this argument. 4.Listening to her cries was
more than flesh and blood could stand. 5. Сhildren nurtured by loving and
caring parents are more successful in their family life. 6. It might be more
prudent to get a second opinion before going ahead. 7.Our works overlap
slightly, causing some difficulties
Ex.4 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary.
1.Они ушли под покровом темноты не сказав ни слова 2. Внутри
ее сердца она питала маленькую секретную надежду когда-нибудь
стать знаменитой актрисой. 3. Она выглядит очень измученной.
Говорят, она принимает таблетки, подавляющие аппетит. 4. Известно,
что грязные руки – благодатная среда для размножения разных
микробов. 5. Рыбьи чешуйки плотно накладываются друг на друга. 6.
Наркотики вызывают дисфункцию мозга. 7. Они наблюдали как она
выходила из церкви в великолепном свадебном наряде
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Ex.5 Using an English-English Dictionary give your explanation to 5
words or word combinations from your vocabulary list and
ask other students from your group to express each
explanation in one word.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Replace the underlined pronouns with suitable words and word
combinations from the text.
1. It can be unique for every person.
2. It is affected by our environment.
3. Changing of them have an effect on our skin flora.
4. They found them on the skin of six volunteers.
5. Experts want to know if certain skin microbes are connected to them.
6. Someday it might suppress bad bacteria and nurture friendly ones.
7. A better understanding of human’s gems will lead to it.
Ex.2 Make up 5 questions for interviewing Mr. Blaster
Ex.3 Do a written translation of the passage “The billions of microscopic
critters…an effect on our skin flora’-he said”
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Text 5
Concrete
Concrete has been a high-tech material since Roman times, when it was
discovered that adding volcanic ash to the mix allowed it to set under water.
Similarly, the Romans knew that adding horsehair made concrete less liable
to shrink while it hardened, and adding blood made it more frost-resistant. In
modern times, researches have added other materials to create concrete that is
capable of conducting electricity. It heats up when a voltage is applied,
making it possible to build runways and drives that clear themselves of snow.
Bill Price of the University of Houston now has an ambitious plan to make
concrete with an even more unusual property: he wants it to be transparent.
That is not as absurd as it sounds. Technically, concrete is simply a
mixture of three ingredients: big lumps of material called the coarse
aggregate (such as gravel), smaller lumps called the fine aggregate (such as
sand) and a binding agent, or cement, to glue it all together into a solid. So
transparent concrete, in theory, should be fairly easy to make using bits of
plastic or glass of various sizes, with some kind of transparent glue to act as a
binding agent. Tests of his initial samples suggest that, structurally,
translucent concrete is just as good as the traditional kind. But it would cost
around five times as much.
I. Vocabulary List
to discover
to set (a goal; an example; in motion)
to be liable to smth. (dispute; variations)
property
to be transparent
lump (lump of clay; lump of ice; lump of money)
binding
to glue
II. Vocabulary Exercises
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Ex.1. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary
Ex.2. Explain in English:
high-tech material, Roman times, volcanic ash, ambitious plans, mixture
of three ingredients; translucent concrete
Ex.3. Make four sentences of your own using the following phrasal
verbs:
to set back – препятствовать, задерживать
to set forth - излагать, формулировать
to set forward – излагать, выдвигать
to set up - основывать, учреждать
Ex.4. Translate into Russian:
1. The binding of this book is torn. 2. The city is growing and property
in the center is becoming more valuable. 3. Scientists have discovered that
this disease is carried by rats. 4. He was not liable for his son’s debts. 5. Her
silk dress was almost transparent. 6. I take one lump of sugar in my tea. 7.
She found a lump in her left breast. 8. She glued the two pieces of wood
together. 9. The children are always glued to the television. 10. Roadblocks
were set up by the police to catch the escaped prisoner. 11. The discovery of
gold in California set off a rush to get there. 12. The bad weather will set
back our building plans by 3 weeks.
Ex.5. Translate into English using Active Vocabulary:
1. Каковы основные составляющие цемента? 2. Основным
препятствием для широкого производства прозрачного цемента
является его цена. 3. Ломоносов основал первый российский
университет в Москве в 18 веке. 4. Ученые выдвинули новую гипотезу
относительно теории Дарвина. 5. Отвечая на вопросы, ученик должен
четко формулировать свои мысли и идеи. 6. Антибиотики
препятствуют развитию и размножению болезнетворных бактерий в
организме человека, тем самым помогая ему победить болезнь. 7.
Квартира в центре города была его собственностью. 8. Пытаясь начать
склеивать детали, Роман затратил много времени на поиски клея среди
хлама на столе. 9. Имей он массу денег, он бы не стал скитаться по
товарным лавкам в поисках хоть какой-то работы.
Remember the meaning of some other word combinations:
as early as –еще, уже
as far back as - еще, уже
as late as – только, лишь; еще
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as little/few as – всего (лишь), только
as many/much as – целых
as recently as – всего лишь, только
as long as – пока
as far as – насколько
as soon as – как только
five times as much – в пять раз больше
many times as large – во много раз больше
Ex.6. Translate the following phrases:
Всего неделя, еще/уже в 17 веке, целых 100 кг, еще в 1975 г.,
только в 2004 г.;
Насколько мне известно, пока я помню/не забыл, как только я
приеду.
Learn the following expressions with the verb “make”:
to make it possible – давать возможность, делать возможным
to make it easy/difficult – облегчать/затруднять
easy/difficult to make – легко/трудно производить
Ex.7. Translate the sentences below from Russian into English:
1. Новые технологии дают возможность производить разные виды
цемента.
2. Плохие погодные условия затруднили осуществление
эксперимента.
3. Такой отчет нетрудно подготовить.
III. Grammar Section
Complex Object
Ex.1. Decide what parts of speech the following words are according to
the text:
mix, clear, sounds, aggregate, solid, glue, cost
Ex.2. Suggest the following sentences in English using “as...as”:
1. Упражнения такие же трудные, как и текст.
2. Я собираюсь сделать это как можно быстрее.
3. Он не так умен, как кажется
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Ex.3. Read the passage and distinguish the infinitive construction:
For the last hundred years we all watch the climate growing much
warmer. This has had a number of different effects. First of all, glaciers have
been melting very rapidly. For example, the scientists proved the Muir
Glacier in Alaska to retreat two miles in ten years. Secondly, rising
temperatures have been causing the snowline to retreat on mountains over the
world. In Peru, for example, it has risen as much as 2700 feet in 60 years.
Ex.4. Give Russian equivalents of the sentences below:
1. Scientific research requires people to question received wisdom and
to draw conclusion based on evidence.
2. The commission wants the government to draft a policy for
protecting the environment.
3. As the creator of psychoanalysis, you might expect Freud to be its
best practitioner. In fact he seems to have been a useless therapist.
4. State-of-the-art environmental controls will enable the delicate and
rarely seen works of art to be shown for the first time.
5. Britons and Americans alike consider the English Puritans who
settled New England to be the progenitors of the United States.
6. Antibiotics can cause more resistant strains of bacteria to develop.
7. Scientist found the theory correct.
8. Any person who has lived in the 20th century has seen a lot of
changes take place in almost all areas of human existence.
9. Many immigrant groups in America want their children to know
their own culture. Many Hispanics, for example, wish their children
to learn both English and Spanish in school.
10. They admitted the results of his experiments to be disappointing.
11. Researchers have now proved earlier theories to have been wrong.
IV. Speaking Practice:
Ex.1. Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. Since what times has concrete been a high-tech material?
2. What should be added to make concrete less liable to shrink and
more frost-resistant?
3. What can concrete conduct?
4. What other unusual properties do scientists plan to use while making
concrete?
5. What are ingredients of concrete?
6. What can be said about translucent concrete?
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Ex.2. Recall the situations from the text illustrating the Active
Vocabulary.
Ex.3. Say everything you can about:
 Ingredients of concrete;
 Properties of concrete;
 Transparent concrete.
Ex.4. Make up a dialogue between a scientist and a publisher of one of
newspapers.
Ex.5. Retell the story as if you were:
 A scientific researcher;
 A publisher;
 A worker at one of the building companies.
119
Text 6
Fossils
As each layer of sedimentary rock was formed the plants and animals
which were alive at that time became buried in it when they died. Usually
they simply rotted away without any trace, but occasionally fossil skeletons
have survived for millions of years. It is from these fossils that we learn
about extinct plants, such as the giant tree ferns, and extinct animals, such as
the great reptiles. We can tell from rocks that dinosaurs lived about two
hundred million years ago and early fishers five hundred million.
Fossils also give us clues about the climate. For example, rocks in
Greenland contain fossils of plants that can live only in a warm climate; so
we can conclude that these northern regions must once have been warmer.
Fossils tell us about changes to the Earth as well. Those of sea animals found
in mountain ranges, for instance, show that the areas which are mountains
today were once probably under the sea. This evidence suggests that great
earth movements must have taken place. Indeed, there is other evidence that
on some occasions these movements were so violent that even the order of
the rock layers was upset. In the Grand Canyon of Arizona the river has cut a
gorge 1.5 km deep so that the layers of rock (strata) built up over three
hundred million years are clearly visible.
Rocks containing fossils help us to trace the Earth’s history back six
hundred million years. The older igneous rocks which contain no fossils
cannot be used in this way but scientists can calculate their age by testing the
radioactive materials they contain: as radio-isotopes decay they form stable
products. It is the ratio of active to stable material that provides an age clue
from which it is estimated that the Earth started to cool about four thousand
million years ago.
I. Vocabulary list
sedimentary
fossils
trace
decay
rot
gorge
igneous
stable
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estimate
fern
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Explain in English the meaning of the following words and word
combinations
Extinct, fern, reptile, rotted away without any trace, to give clues, a
gorge.
Ex.2 Find mistakes in the given definitions
Fossil- the remains of an animal or a plant which have become soft
Gorge- a shallow wide valley with steep sides
Fern –a plant growing in dry areas
Trace- a sign that smth has disappeared
Decay- the process of creation
Ex.3 Translate into Russian
1. The prisoner was thrown in the jail and left to rot. 2. The new
landlord had let the building fall into decay. 3. Fern is a plant with large
delicate leaves and no flowers that grows in wet areas or is grown in a pot. 4.
There have been just three winners from his stable this season. 5. Mentally,
she is not very stable. 6. I have been unable to trace the letter you mentioned.
7. A tear traced a path down her cheek. 8. We know about dinosaurs from the
fossils that they left behind. 9. The police think that this videotape can give
some vital clues to the identity of the killer.
Ex.4 Decide which of the word from Vocabulary list can fill the gap in
each sentence to make it true.
1. … in the tree trunk caused the tree to fall.
2. The … in her garden grow in the cool area under the trees.
3. The passenger pigeon is an … species.
4. Years of living in England had eliminated all … of her American
accent.
5. The Roman Empire slowly … and lost its power.
6. “You will never guess who I saw today!” – “Give me a …”
Ex.5 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1. Слишком много сахара и сладостей вызывают кариес зубов. 2. В
наши дни многие говорят о падении морали в нашем обществе. 3. Во
время мирового кризиса и сложно экономической ситуации устойчивые
цены не тот вопрос, который можно обсуждать 4. Трудно установить
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сколько жителей на самом деле проживает во Владивостоке, многие
живут в городе без прописки. 5. Оголодавшие путешественники жадно
набросились на еду, забыв об усталости.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Say what you have known about
 Fossils skeleton
 Rock layers
 Igneous rocks
Ex.2 Answer the questions
1. Where can you find fossil skeletons?
2. What can we learn from these fossils?
3. Fossils give us clues about the climate, don’t they?
4. Can fossils tell us about changes to the Earth?
Ex.3 Do a written translation of the passage “Fossils also give us clues…
(to the end)”
122
Text 7
Underground cities project in Japan
Japan, a densely inhabited country, is bursting with people. Cities have
extended outward and upward to their limits. In the future they may extend
downward. Developers envision future underground cities of stores, offices, hotels
and theaters extending for hundreds of miles. These underground cities would
be sustained by immense underground structures containing equipment to
generate power, process waste and condition the air. Engineers are confident
that the structures would be safe. They would be resistant to earthquake and water
leakage and would not collapse from external pressure. Engineers admit that the
structures would be vulnerable to fires. An out-of-control fire could trap
thousands of people underground. To prevent such a catastrophe sensitive
smoke detectors would be installed throughout. If a fire originated, people
would be immediately evacuated upward or sheltered in a pressurized
temporary waiting room. The underground atmosphere would be carefully
controlled to provide comfortable levels of temperature and humidity and to
create the illusion of a natural environment. To make the artificial environment
appear more natural real sunlight would be reflected from the surface and abundant
green plants would flourish everywhere. Planners predict that the biggest obstacle
to future underground cities will be psychological resistance to living
underground. They fear people may be unable to endure for days without seeing the
real world. Therefore, planners foresee few underground habitations. Instead,
people would live above ground, but work, shop and enjoy themselves underground.
Underground cities may be a good solution to Japan's shortage of space for
expansion.
I. Vocabulary List
to inhabit
habitation
to burst with smth.
to be confident
to be resistant
resistance
to be vulnerable to
to shelter
humidity
artificial
abundant
obstacle
to endure
to foresee
solution
shortage
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II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary.
Ex.2. Explain in English:
densely inhabited country; to extend; to be sustained by smth.; water
leakage; to trap; to be installed; temporary; to flourish; expansion
Ex.3. Express in one word using Active Vocabulary:
 Protection from danger or from wind, rain, hot sun;
 the deliberate spreading of secret information when gas, water leaks
in or out;
 to be aware of or realize beforehand;
 able to be hurt or injured, exposed to danger or criticism;
 the process of coping with a problem;
 not originating naturally;
 having plenty of smth.;
 keep air moist in a room.
Ex4. Translate into Russian:
1. I can’t endure that noise a moment longer. 2. It was a house unfit for
habitation. 3. That bag is bursting with potatoes. 4. My heart was bursting
with grief. 5. The government is confident that it will win the next election.
6. If a person is vaccinated, he is resistant to a certain disease. 7. The
committee put up a lot of resistance to the chairman’s plan. 8. We are in a
vulnerable position here, with the enemy on the hill above us. 9. In the rain
people were sheltering in the doorways of shops. 10. She welcomed me with
an artificial smile. 11. The country has abundant supplies of oil. 12. She felt
that her family was an obstacle to her work.
Ex.5. Translate into English using Active Vocabulary:
1. Он не ожидал, что его путешествие будет отложено из за плохой
погоды. 2. Очень трудно найти решение данной проблемы. 3. Во время
военных действий люди испытывали недостаток воды и пищи. 4. Это
была красивая жилая зона. 5. «Мария очень стойкая девушка, она
быстро поправится»,- сказал доктор. 6. Молодая девушка выглядела
очень уязвимой. 7. Фермеры укрыли груды найденного металла, т.к.
боялись установленных властями штрафов. 8. Недостаток влажности
может привести к засухе. 9. Я не могу больше выносить эту ужасную
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головную боль. 10. Петр не мог сесть в автобус, т.к. автобус был
переполнен людьми.
III. Grammar Section
Ex.1. Decide what parts of speech the following words are according to
the text:
inhabit; habitation; resistant; shelter; abundant; shortage; resistance.
IV. Speaking Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. What is the main problem in Japan?
2. What is the way of solving this problem?
3. What will the underground cities be sustained by?
4. What can be said about safety of such structures?
5. What will be controlled in underground cities by special devices?
6. What will be done to make artificial environment appear more
natural?
7. Are there any problems connected with underground cities?
Ex.2. Recall the situations from the text illustrating the Active
Vocabulary.
Ex.3. Say everything you can about:
 Japan and Japanese population;
 Safety of underground cities;
 Problems connected with underground cities.
Ex.4. Make up a dialogue between
a scientist researcher and a publisher of one of international newspapers
about underground cities.
Ex.5. Retell the story as if you were:
 A scientific researcher;
 A publisher;
 A citizen of an underground city.
Ex.6. Discuss the following questions:
 What other ways of Japan’s shortage of space can be suggested?
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 Why will there be some obstacles to realize such project?
 If you were a Japanese, where would you live above ground or
underground?
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES
Text 1
The origin of taxation
The Bible records that Jesus offered his views on a taxation matter and
converted a prominent taxman. In its early days taxation did not always
involve hanging over money. The ancient Chinese paid with pressed tea and
Jivaro tribesmen in the Amazon region stumped up shrunken heads. As the
price of their citizenship ancient Greeks and Romans could be called on to
serve as soldiers and had to supply their own weapons. The origins of modern
taxation can be traced to wealthy subjects paying money to their king in lieu
of military service.
The other early source of tax revenue was trade, with tolls and customs
duties being collected from travelling merchants. The big advantage of these
taxes was that they fell mostly on visitors rather than residents. One of the
earliest taxes imposed by England's Parliament in the 13th century was
'tonnage and poundage' on wine, wool and leather, targeted at Italian
merchants. Sometimes rulers went a little over the top. Excessive taxation
was one reason why King Charles I of England lost his head. Many of those
guillotined during the French Revolution of 1789 were much-resented private
tax collectors.
Income tax, the biggest source of government funds today, is a relatively
recent invention, probably because the notion of annual income is itself a
modern concept. Governments preferred to tax things that were easy to
measure and therefore to calculate liability on. That is why early taxes
concentrated on tangible items such as land and property, physical goods,
commodities and ships. The first income tax was levied in 1797 by the Dutch
Batavian Republic. Britain followed suit in 1799 and Prussia in 1808. Like
most new taxes these imposts were first introduced as temporary measures to
finance war efforts.
What stands out about the 20th century is that governments around the
world have been taking a growing share of their countries' national income in
tax mainly to pay for ever more expensive defence efforts and for a modern
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welfare state. Taxes on consumption, such as the sales tax that is a big source
of revenue for America's state and local governments, and the value-added
tax on goods and services in Europe have become increasingly important.
Big differences between countries remain in the overall level of tax.
America's tax revenues amount to around one-third of its GDP, whereas
Sweden's are closer to half. There are also big differences in the preferred
methods of collecting it, the rates at which it is levied and the definition of
the 'tax base' to which those rates are applied, as well as the division of
responsibility for taxation between levels of government.
The increasing globalization of economies in the 20th century was
accompanied by a rare outbreak of internationalism by the tax authorities.
Many countries chose to tax their citizens on their global income whether or
not they had already paid their due on some of it abroad.
The League of Nations in 1921 commissioned a report by financial
experts who concluded that this practice of 'double taxation' interfered with
economic intercourse and the free flow of capital. It suggested rules for
determining when tax should be paid to the country in which the income is
generated and when to the taxpayer's country of residence. It drafted a model
treaty that spawned many bilateral agreements. Initially intended to stop
income being taxed twice, these bilateral treaties opened the way for
multinational companies to avoid tax on their profits altogether by setting up
in business where taxes were lowest. Combined with greater mobility of
capital this new flexibility encouraged tax competition between countries
I. Vocabulary list
liability
stump up
lieu
excessive
impost
commission
bilateral
tangible
converted
trace
revenue
notion
levy
spawn
profit
commodity
II. Vocabulary exercises
Ex.1 Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary.
Ex.2 Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions.
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Начало системы налогообложения было заложено богатыми
подданными, одним из первых источников налогообложения была
торговля, распространялись на приезжих, измерить и просчитать долг,
чрезмерные налоги, направленные на торговцев, подоходный налог,
налог на продажу, налог на добавочную стоимость, уровень налогов,
Ex.3 Explain in English:
Taxation
Income tax
Taxes on consumption
Sales tax
Value-added taxes
Taxes on the profit
Ex.4 Translate into Russian paying attention to your active vocabulary
1. We were asked to stump up for the repairs. 2.We’ll work on Saturday
and they’ll give us a day off in lieu during the week. 3.What rate will I get if
I convert my dollars into euro? 4.Advertising revenue finances the
commercial television channels. 5.The band’s album spawned a string of hit
singles. 6.Water is a precious commodity that is often taken for granted in
the West. 7.The survey on consumer taste was commissioned by local stores.
8.What have you heard about a tax levied by the government on excess
company profit? 9.The leak was eventually traced to a broken seal. 10.My
grandparents spawned a family of merchants. 11. In an excess of enthusiasm
I agreed to work extra-hours. 12. The officials of two countries held bilateral
talks.
Ex.5 Translate into English paying attention to your active vocabulary
1.Они взяли предложенные деньги вместо выигранного приза.
2.Годовой доход компании вырос c 27% до 30%. 3.Мы перешли с угля
на отопление газом.
4.Нефть считается одним из самых важных
продаваемых
товаров в мире.
5.Компания не берет на себя
ответственность за ущерб, причиненный природными катаклизмами.
6.Мы не можем рассматривать его открытия без основательных
доказательств. 7.Мы всегда стараемся учиться на своих ошибках. 8.
Годы, прожитые в Англии не оставили и следа от ее американского
акцента.
III. Speaking and Written practice
Ex.1 Answer the questions:
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1 .What is the main idea of the text?
2. What was the first kind of tax in ancient Greece?
3. What was the main early source of tax?
4. Who fell the first taxes on?
5. What things are preferred to tax?
6. How and when was the first income tax levied?
7. What kinds of taxation are increasingly important nowadays?
8. What is different in the system of taxation in different countries?
9. What was commissioned by the League of Nations in 1921?
10. Why was the report so important for multinational companies?
Ex.2 Say everything you can about:
 The early days of taxation
 Income tax
 Different types of tax
 Difference in the taxation system in different countries
 Practice of ‘double taxation’
Ex.3 Recall the situation from the text illustrating the Active vocabulary.
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SOME SOCIAL ISSUES
Text 1
The Loneliness of the High-Powered Woman
For six months, I have been reading The New York Times's "Portraits in
Grief"— heart-rending profiles of the people who died on September 11—
and I've noticed a pattern: most of the men killed in the attack on the World
Trade Center, particularly those in their 30s and 40s who worked in the
financial industry, left wives and children. More often than not, however,
their female colleagues were single and/or childless and were lauded as loving aunts and friends.
The probable reasons for this gender dichotomy are detailed in the latest
in a long line of books about women, work, and family: Creating a Life:
Professional Women and the Quest for Children by economist Sylvia Ann
Hewlett. This is not just another polemic about how hard it is for women to
"have it all." Hewlett, the author of several books on work and family, gives a
nuanced picture of what life is like in the U. S. for career women, based on
extensive research. The heart of the book is a national survey of the parental
and marital status of 1,168 high-achieving professional women, a further 479
women with advanced degrees who've dropped out of the workforce, and 472
high-achieving men, all between 28 and 55.
The study shows that 49% of women over 40 who earn more than
$100,000 a year are childless. That compares with 19% of men in the same
category. And lest you assume that these women chose the life they're living,
only 14% said they had not wanted children.
So what happened? Based on a lot of the press commentary, it seems
that one popular assumption is that most of these women cared more about
their careers than about marriage and children, and now they are paying the
price.
But Hewlett reveals a more uncomfortable reality, one that is not getting
much attention from the commentators who see this as strictly a woman's
problem, or fault. A primary reason so many career women don't have
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children is that they don't have spouses. Only 57% of the high-achieving
women over 40 in corporate jobs are married, compared with 83% of male
achievers. Overall, high-achieving women either marry early or not at all.
Just 10% of the women surveyed got married for the first time after age 30,
and 1% after age 35.
One woman interviewed, an associate in the municipal-securities department at UBS Paine Webber Inc., relates how those statistics play out in her office. "Half of the male associates in my group...are already married with children. And in all cases they have stay-at-home wives. In contrast, most of the
female associates are single. Only two of them are married, and neither have
children." Further up the career ladder the male-female divide becomes even
more marked”, she says. The men are all married with kids, while the two
forty something executive women are both divorced and childless.
It seems that boys don't make passes at girls who get MBAS. Interview
after interview features women who, as they became more successful, were
rejected by a man, or found it difficult to get a date in the first place, or ended
up with men who either didn't want children (often because they already had
kids by their discarded first wives), or saw no reason to "rush" into
parenthood. As one practical woman acknowledges: "The hard fact is that
most successful men are not interested in acquiring a peer as a partner."
Hewlett does a good job of laying out the problems facing professional
women, and her data are brought vividly to life by the many interviews she
did with women, and some men, who are grappling with these issues. She devotes a heartbreaking chapter to the problem of infertility and the many
women who do not want to believe that the odds are firmly against
successfully giving birth once they're past the age of 40. She also shows how
hostile the corporate world is to family life, regardless of your sex. Longer
and longer workweeks for the managerial classes make it tough for anyone to
spend time with children—although, as she notes, at least men with stay-athome wives get to have them. Where Hewlett falls down is in her proffered
solutions. She wants women while still in their early 20s to construct a plan
for getting married and having kids, just as they do for their careers. But life
has a nasty way of derailing plans.
So here's a thought: How about viewing this as a male rather than a
female problem? Creating a Life could be assigned to all men in graduate
programs. Classes could be set up to encourage men to marry women who
are their professional equals. Classes could start changing a corporate culture
that seems to have been designed by and for men not eager to spend time
with their families. And perhaps we all could recognize that, since children
are the future of society, it might be worthwhile to reconcile their needs with
the demands of the workplace.
131
I. Vocabulary list
to laud
stay-at-home
discard
hostile
to derail
to reconcile
to make passes at
to grapple with (the issues)
to pay the price
assumption
associate
to lay out the problem
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Give definitions to the lexical units in active vocabulary list using
an English-English dictionary.
Ex.2. Give English equivalents to the following:
душераздирающий, восхвалять, модель, статус, жены домохозяйки,
отвергнутые (жены), бесплодие, враждебный, крушить (планы),
примирять, предположение, супруг, делать попытки ухаживания,
пытаться преодолеть трудности, платить цену, партнер (в фирме),
выявлять проблему.
Ex.3. Pick out sentences from the text in which the following wordcombinations are used. Reproduce the situation.
to be lauded as; parental and marital status; to drop out of the workforce;
popular assumption; to pay the price; spouses; an associate; have stay-athome wives; make passes at; discarded first wives; lay out the problems; the
problem of infertility; hostile; derailing plans; be assigned to.
Ex.4. Express the following in one word or phrase:
 angry and deliberately unfriendly towards someone and ready to argue
with them;
 to praise someone or something;
 whether someone is married - used especially on official forms;
 something that you think is true although you have no definite proof;
 someone who you work or do business with;
 to get rid of something;
 to spoil or interrupt a plan, agreement etc;
 to try to kiss or touch another person with the intention of starting a
sexual relationship with them;
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 a wife who prefers staying at home, rather than working somewhere
else, usually in order to take care of children;
 to make someone able to accept a difficult or unpleasant situation;
 to try hard to deal with or understand something difficult.
Ex.5. Explain the meaning of the following word-combinations:
1. hostile action, hostile climate, hostile environment, hostile reaction,
hostile response, hostile takeover, hostile territory, hostile world.
2. to derail the peace process; to derail the plan; to derail a train; to
derail the wedding.
3. to reconcile personal and group differences, to reconcile difficulty, to
reconcile a problem, to reconcile the two theories.
4. to grapple with the problem of unemployment; to grapple with issue,
to grapple with the homework; to grapple with the social changes; to grapple
with the challenges.
Ex.6. Study the use of the active vocabulary in the sentences below.
Translate them.
1. He lauded his wife's charity work. 2. The boy feels hostile towards
his father. 3. The Government is encouraging women back into the workforce
- I think stay-at-home mums should be encouraged, too. 4. Forty-five people
were injured when a passenger train derailed near Ottumwa, Iowa. 5. He
tried to reconcile his father to the idea of the wedding. 6. Williams is now
paying the price for his early mistakes. 7. A lot of people make the
assumption that poverty only exists in the Third World. 8. Well, lay out the
problem and let's try to do something about it. 9. The last thing she had
wanted was for Luke to make a pass at her. 10. Two men grappled with a
guard at the door. 11. Friends and associates describe him as a man of deep
religious convictions. 12. People who discard their litter in the streets should
have to pay heavy fines.
Ex.7. Translate the following into English:
1. Её всегда хвалят как хорошую хозяйку. 2. Все мы
предположили, что новая компания скоро обанкротится. 3.
Террористические группы пытаются сорвать мирный процесс на
Ближнем Востоке (the Middle East). 4. Правительство столкнулось с
проблемой безработицы. 5. Поэтому он расплачивается и за мои грехи
и за твои. 6. Почему многие коллеги считают его недостаточно
компетентным для этого проекта? 7. Может быть она пытается
ухаживать за ним? 8. Какой смысл раскрывать перед вами проблему,
которая не будет решена? 9. Мужчины редко пристают к девушкам в
133
очках. 10. Часто избавляются от дорогого оборудования. 11. Для того
чтобы достичь согласия нам необходимо устранить некоторые
разногласия. 12. Наша передача ориентирована, прежде всего, на
домохозяек и мам.
Ex.8. Ask one another fact-finding questions stimulating the use of the
active vocabulary.
Ex.9. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary and try
to put them into a story.
III. Speaking and Written Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following questions:
1.
What is the main problem laid out in the article?
2.
What are the author’s findings based on?
3.
Name the reasons that cause the problem?
4.
Do you agree that women are lonely because they care more
about their career and not family and children?
5.
Describe the situation at their workplace. In what way does the
life of a career woman differ from that of a male associate?
6.
Do you think that men are afraid of smart and intelligent
women? What does the survey reveal?
7.
What do you think can solve this problem?
Ex.2. Confirm or disprove the following:
 According to the survey most high-achieving women are childless
because they didn’t not want children.
 Hewlett confirms that most of these women cared more about their
careers than about marriage and children, and now they are paying the price.
 Career women are childless because they are not married.
 It seems that boys are likely to make passes at girls who get MBAs.
Ex.3. Speak on the following topics:
 Most of these women cared more about their careers than about
marriage and children, and now they are paying the price.
 Boys don't make passes at girls who get MBAs. Women who’ve
became more successful are rejected by men.
 Loneliness of high-powered women is a male rather than a female
problem.
 The corporate world is hostile to family life, regardless of your sex.
134
Ex.4. Read and do the literary translation of the paragraph on p. 62
beginning with the words ‘Hewlett does a good job of laying out a problem’
and till the words (on p. 63): ‘But life has a nasty way of derailing plans’.
Ex.5. Recount the text as it would be told by:
- a stay-at-home wife;
- a high-powered woman;
- Sylvia Ann Hewlett;
- a bachelor.
Ex.6. Write:
a). a summary of the text;
b). a story that illustrates the following statement ‘Life has a nasty way
of derailing plans’. Remember to take advantage of the active vocabulary.
135
Text 2
Youth's Problems
To some observers, teens today may seem spoiled (undisciplined and
egocentric) compared to those of earlier times. The reality, however, is
different. While poverty has decreased and political turmoil has lessened,
young people are still under many types of stress. Peer pressure, changing
family conditions, mobility of families and unemployment are just a few
reasons why some young people may try to escape reality by turning to
alcohol or drugs. However, most young people in the United States do not
have problems with drinking, drug abuse, teen pregnancies or juvenile
delinquency. Drug use has decreased among young people in the United
States within the last 10 years, though alcohol abuse has increased.
According to one of the government’s surveys, about 8 million teenagers
are weekly users of alcohol, including more than 450,000 who consume an
average of 15 drinks a week. And, although all 50 states prohibit the sale of
alcohol to anyone under 21, some 6.9 million teenagers, including some as
young as 13, reported no problems in obtaining alcohol using false
identification cards. Although many teenagers say they never drive after
drinking, one-third of the students surveyed admitted they have accepted
rides from friends who had been drinking.
Many young Americans are joining organizations to help teenagers stop
drinking and driving. Thousands of teenagers have joined Students Against
Driving Drunk (SADD). They sign contracts in which they and their parents
pledge not to drive after drinking. In some schools, students have joined antidrug programs. Young people with drug problems can also call special
telephone numbers to ask for help.
Aside from drug abuse, another problem of America's youths is
pregnancy among young women.
One million teenagers become pregnant each year. Why are the statistics
so high? The post-World War II baby boom resulted in a 43 percent increase
in the number of teenagers in the 1960s and 1970s. The numbers of sexually
active teens also increased. And some commentators believe that regulations
for obtaining federal welfare assistance unintentionally encourage teenage
pregnancies. Many community programs help cut down on the numbers of
teenage pregnancies. Some programs rely on strong counseling against
premarital sex and others provide contraceptive counseling. The "Teen
Health Project" in New York City has led to a decline of 13.5 percent in the
rate of teenage pregnancies. Why? Their program offers health care,
contraceptive counseling, sports programs, job referrals and substance abuse
programs.
136
About one million young people run away from home each year. Most
return after a few days or a few weeks, but a few turn to crime and become
juvenile delinquents. Why are young people committing crimes? Among the
causes are poor family relationships (often the children were abused or
neglected while growing up), bad neighborhood conditions, peer pressure and
sometimes, drug addiction. Laws vary from state to state regarding juvenile
delinquents. Once arrested, a juvenile must appear in a juvenile court.
Juvenile courts often give lighter punishments to young people than to adults
who commit the same crime. Juvenile courts hope to reform or rehabilitate
the juvenile delinquent. New programs to help troubled youths are created
every year. For example, the city of New York and the Rheedlen Foundation
provide an after-school program at a junior high school to help keep teens
from becoming juvenile delinquents. Young people can talk with peer
counselors (people their own age), receive academic tutoring or take part in
athletic and social activities. One New York community's library offers
weekday evening workshops in dance, art, music and theater. They also
sponsor social events, such as theater productions, in which young people can
participate. Another group, the "Youth Rescue Fund" has a celebrity peer
council of 15 teenage actors and actresses who volunteer their time to
increase teen crisis awareness. As one young television actress said:
"Teenagers are an important resource in improving the quality of life for all
people."
I. Vocabulary List
to spoil
turmoil
juvenile
delinquency
abuse
to pledge
welfare
to counsel
job referrals
delinquent (adj/noun)
to rehabilitate
to lessen
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary.
Ex.2. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
to receive academic tutoring, to provide, an after school program, to
increase teen crisis awareness, to accept rides, to result in , to obtain federal
welfare assistance, to cut down, substance abuse programs, drug addiction,
juvenile court
137
Ex.3. Translate the following words and expressions into English:
бедность,
безработица,
избегать
реальности,
юношеская
преступность, уменьшаться, увеличиваться, запрещать, фальшивые
идентификационные карточки, признавать, подписывать контракт,
присоединяться к программе против наркотиков, предписания,
общественные программы, совершать преступления, варьироваться
Ex.4. Express in one word using Active Vocabulary:
 To make useless, ruin;
 State of great disturbance or confusion;
 A young offender, too young to be held legally responsible for his or
her actions;
 Unkind, cruel or rude words;
 Youthful, childish, for young people;
 Behaviour, esp. of a young people that is not in accordance with the
law;
 To make a solemn promise or agreement;
 To make or become less in size, importance, appearance.
Ex.5. Translate into Russian:
1. He spoilt the soup by putting too much salt in it. 2. The town was in
turmoil. 3. Juvenile delinquent was to blame for shop robbery. 4. He
greeted me with a stream of abuse. 5. Take this ring as a pledge of our
friendship. 6. She is in welfare work: she helps people who have no jobs,
family problems. 7. The counseling service for new students was opened in
our university. 8. Tobacco and alcohol can be dangerous drugs. 9.
Unemployment became worse as factories closed. 10. Crime is on the
increase.
Ex.6. Translate into English using Active Vocabulary:
1. Фрукты испортились на солнце. 2. Кто прекратит эту суматоху?
3. Магазин специализировался на продаже книг для юношества. 4.
Количество преступлений зависит от благосостояния общества и
состояния экономики. 5. Они поклялись, что навсегда останутся
верными друг другу. 6. Мы думаем только о его комфорте: мы хотим,
чтобы он был счастлив в школе. 7. Будучи адвокатом, он всегда пытался
реабилитировать преступников. 8. Ваше преступное поведение
бросает тень на вашу репутацию. 9. Бедность помешала мальчику
продолжить обучение. 10. Компания уменьшила количество рабочих.
138
Ex.7. Give all possible related words:
abuse, delinquency, juvenile, pledge, counsel
III. Speaking Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. Why do young people try to escape reality by turning to alcohol or
drugs?
2. What are the regulations connected with the sale of alcohol in the
USA?
3. How do Americans try to solve the problem of alcohol and drug
addiction?
4. What other youth’s problems are there in the USA?
5. How do Americans try to solve the problem of youth’s pregnancies?
6. What are the reasons of committing crimes by young people?
7. What is the main purpose of juvenile courts?
8. What are the programs to help troubled youths?
Ex.2. Recall the situations from the text illustrating the Active
Vocabulary.
Ex.3. Say everything you can about:
 Social programs which are created to help troubled youths.
Ex.4. Make up a dialogue between:
 The director of after-school program and the journalist of one of the
local juvenile newspaper
 One of the participants of Students Against Driving Drunk
organization and a journalist
Ex.5. Discuss the following question:
 Youth’s problems in Russia and the way to solve them
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CLONING
Text 1
Troublesome Business
Cloning or nuclear transfer involves shifting the nucleus of an adult cell
into an egg which has had its nucleus taken out. The resulting cell or zygote
then has all the genetic material and biochemical machinery it needs to get on
with the business of becoming an embryo.
It also becomes a ready source of embryonic stem cells which can transform
themselves into the different cell types needed to build a body. Most adult cells
lack this versatility. But when their nuclei are transferred into eggs something
happens which gives them the potential to get into new lines of work.
Many researchers and needy patients are hopeful that embryonic stem cells
might one day provide a supply of replacement tissue for organs worn out
through disease and old age. Because the transplanted nucleus could come from one
of the patient's own cells the resulting stem cells would be genetically identical to the
donor. Therefore any 'spare parts' grown from such cells and popped back into
the patient might avoid the problem of transplant rejection which comes with
genetically mismatched grafts.
But cloning is a troublesome business. Experience with species cloned
thus far including sheep, cows and pigs shows it to be very inefficient; according
to one estimate it would take 280 human eggs to produce a single line of embryonic
stem cells. Human eggs are in short supply and hard enough to obtain for routine in
vitro fertilisation, let alone to meet the additional demands of therapeutic
cloning.
There are ethical dilemmas to deal with too. Therapeutic cloning is
essentially the same as reproductive cloning. Regulations in Britain which were
recently amended to allow research into therapeutic cloning stipulate that the
cloned embryo must end its days in the laboratory within 14 days of creation.
Even with this safeguard, together with stern prohibitions on the reproductive
cloning of humans in most countries with sufficient resources to do it, many feel
therapeutic cloning is a step too far.
I. Vocabulary list
troublesome
(nuclear) transfer
nucleus/ nuclei
egg
to get on with
to wear out
tissue
in vitro fertilization
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adult cell/ stem cell
embryo
reproductive cloning
therapeutic cloning
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Give English equivalents to the following:
пересаженное/трансплантированное ядро (клетки); клонирование;
зигота (оплодотворенная яйцеклетка); зрелая клетка; стволовая клетка;
ткань; генетический материал; изнашиваться; донор; отторжение
трансплантата; до сих пор; представитель какого-либо биологического
вида; по чьей-либо оценке; искусственное оплодотворение; неудачная
пересадка ткани; строгий запрет.
Ex.2. Form all the derivatives of the following words: nuclear; embryo;
clone; to fertilize.
Ex.3. Match the words and their definitions:
1. nucleus
a.
a cell produced by a woman or female
animal that combines with male cell to make a baby
2. egg
b.
the material forming animal or plant
cells
3. cloning
c.
the central part of almost all the cells of
living things
4. zygote
d.
a special type of cell in the body that can
divide in order to form other types of cells that have
particular qualities or purposes
5. tissue
e.
an animal or human that has not yet
been born, and has just begun to develop
6. stem cell
f.
producing an animal or plant from one
cell of another animal or plant, so that they are exactly
the same
7. embryo
g.
causing problems, in an annoying way
8. troublesome h.
a cell that is formed when an egg is
fertilized
Ex.4. Say in other words: reproductive cloning; transplanted nucleus;
therapeutic cloning; replacement tissue; ethical dilemmas;
transplant rejection; stern prohibitions.
Ex.5. Explain the meaning of the following word-combinations:
1. troublesome neighbourhood; troublesome rumors; a troublesome
child; troublesome business; troublesome itching; troublesome question.
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2. nuclear transfer; electronic data transfer; technology transfer; subway
transfer; a job transfer.
3. to get on with smb.; to get on with one’s work/homework; to get on
with the search; to get on with it.
4. to wear out one’s boots/clothes; to be (look) worn out; worn-out
tools/equipment.
Ex.6. Study the use of the active vocabulary in the sentences below.
Translate them.
1. The plant is regarded as a troublesome weed in rice fields. 2. Further
studies are directed towards the understanding of the role which the stem cell
control factor plays in the normal embryo. 3. We have already seen in vitro
fertilization of both a panda and a gorilla. 4. A doctor could extract one of
her eggs and try to fertilize it in a test tube. 5. Get on with it, we've a train to
catch. 6. Meanwhile, studies published in the Western Journal of Medicine
found no evidence linking implants with connective tissue diseases. 7. After
only a month Terry had worn out the soles of his shoes. 8. All this shopping
has worn us out. 9. Penny's applied for a transfer to head office. 10. Getting
there often means a couple of transfers on a bus line.
Ex.7. Translate the following into English:
1. Инфекция может быть особо опасной, если поражены легкие или
селезенка. 2. Президент США должен решить будут ли выделены
деньги на исследование стволовых клеток. 3. Сторонники
искусственного оплодотворения не смогли изложить свои аргументы
в защиту клонирования. 4. В процессе клонирования ядро зрелой
клетки помещается в яйцеклетку, из которой предварительно удалили
ядро. 5. Давай приниматься за работу, у нас времени не так уж много.
6. Он предложил сначала провести анализ на совместимость тканей. 7.
Ткани наших самых важных органов изнашиваются из-за болезней и
старения. 8. Большинство счетов оплачиваются при помощи
электронных переводов. 9. Результаты пересадки ядра зависят от
множества составляющих.
Ex.8. Translate the sentences from the text paying attention to the
phrases in bold:
1. Therefore any 'spare parts' grown from such cells and popped back into
the patient might avoid the problem of transplant rejection which comes with
genetically mismatched grafts.
2. Experience with species cloned thus far including sheep, cows and
pigs shows it to be very inefficient; according to one estimate it would take 280
human eggs to produce a single line of embryonic stem cells.
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3. Human eggs are in short supply and hard enough to obtain for routine in
vitro fertilisation, let alone to meet the additional demands of therapeutic
cloning.
4. Even with this safeguard, together with stern prohibitions on the
reproductive cloning of humans in most countries with sufficient resources to
do it, many feel therapeutic cloning is a step too far.
Ex.9. Ask one another fact-finding questions stimulating the use of the
active vocabulary.
III. Speaking and Written Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following questions:
1. What is cloning? Describe the process of cloning.
2. In what way do stem cells differ from other cells?
3. How can these cells be used to help needy patients?
4. Why is cloning a troublesome business?
5. Can you point out any differences between reproductive and
therapeutic cloning?
6. Why does the author mention an ethical dilemma?
Ex.2. Speak on the following topics:
 Cloning is a step forward.
 Nuclear transfer is a troublesome business.
 Prospects of in vitro fertilization.
Ex.3. Choose the situations and make up a dialogue between:
 a person who favors cloning and somebody who is against it. Think
carefully about your arguments. Remember that there are 2 types of cloning;
 2 friends who are trying to figure out all the pros and cons of
reproductive and therapeutic cloning.
Ex.4. Retell the article (make up 8-12 sentences) into English using your
active vocabulary.
Орган с собственного огорода
Новость, получившая широкую огласку в середине ноября, стала
счастливым завершением событий, происходивших около пяти месяцев
назад. Столько времени потребовалось, чтобы убедиться в успехе
операции с использованием поистине пионерской технологии.
Тридцатилетняя испанка Клаудиа Кастильо (Claudia Castillo)
страдала туберкулезом. Болезнь вызвала сильное поражение левого
бронха — «воздуховода», ведущего к легкому. Из-за этого пациентка не
могла полноценно использовать свое левое легкое, и при обычном
143
лечении потребовалось бы его удаление. Такая операция существенно
ограничивает трудоспособность — проблемой становится даже быстрая
ходьба. Ситуацию могла частично облегчить пересадка донорской
трахеи. Однако люди, которым пересадили донорские органы, до конца
своих дней вынуждены принимать лекарства, подавляющие иммунитет,
и опасаться отторжения пересаженного органа.
Все наше тело — клон из миллиардов клеток, в которые развилась
(в типичном случае) одна-единственная оплодотворенная яйцеклетка. В
ходе нормального развития эти клетки размножаются, взаимодействуют
друг с другом и формируют каждого из нас. По окончании очередного
этапа развития включаются механизмы, защищающие тело от аномалий
роста — например, опухолей. Способность большинства клеток к
размножению и специализации снижается до предела, допустимого с
точки зрения безопасности организма. Лишь немногие клетки —
стволовые — сохраняют способность к многочисленным делениям, так
как в их функции входит производство быстро изнашивающихся
клеток-потомков, таких как клетки крови. И после этого травмы и
болезни начинают вырывать из наших тел кусок за куском.
Для Клаудии все закончилось благополучно: врачи смогли
вырастить для нее новую трахею. Вначале все же пришлось
использовать донорский материал (трахею умершего человека). Однако
донорские клетки были разрушены, а сама трахея промыта и очищена
настолько, что от нее осталась лишь коллагеновая основа. Коллаген —
белок, являющийся основой соединительной ткани. Всем известный
желатин — это част разваренный коллаген. Так вот, на коллагеновую
основу донорской ткани были высажены стволовые клетки костного
мозга самой больной. За несколько дней они заселили отведенное им
пространство, сформировав живой орган. Эта трахея была пересажена
Клаудии и на удивление быстро прижилась. Вскоре врачи уже не могли
провести границу между естественными тканями и пересаженным
фрагментом.
По оценкам экспертов, до массового выращивания органов из
стволовых клеток самих больных пройдет еще лет двадцать. Вероятно,
со временем можно будет синтезировать основу для размножения
клеток искусственным путем, обходясь без донорского материала.
Конечно, трахея — орган довольно простой, а, скажем, выращивание
почки представляет куда более трудную задачу. И все-таки первый шаг
сделан!
Ex.5. Write a letter to a friend explaining what cloning is.
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Text 2
Genetic Engineering
Genetic engineering is a subject which is rather complicated for the public.
As the science of genetic engineering advances, science fiction is being
turned into reality. Such developments, however, are totally unacceptable to a
large proportion of the general public.
Many people object to the use of genetic engineering in food production.
In research centers throughout the world experiments are being carried out to
produce genetically modified plants that can resist pests or produce a higher
yield or last longer. For example, tomato products are already being sold which do
not spoil quickly. They are labelled by people as 'Frankenstein' tomatoes. The main
concern of many people is that these changes are unsafe.
They fear that such alterations will in turn ultimately lead to changes in
the environment and food chain, which scientists have not thought of. Similarly,
people are anxious that certain altered micro-organisms which are dangerous
might accidentally escape into the environment with catastrophic
consequences. Can scientists confirm categorically that the modifications they
have made to the structure of plants and animals will not affect the health of
both humans and animals?
Another major argument against is that the morality of using genetic
engineering is questionable. Recently, the general public were shocked and
disturbed to see on TV and in many newspapers the sight of a mouse which
had been genetically engineered to have no immune system. What disturbed most
people was the sight of a human ear growing under the skin of the mouse's back. The
ear was developed for cosmetic reasons, for example to help deformed children.
While everyone would agree with the aim of helping people with physical
deformities, few people could not but be appalled at the immoral use of helpless
animals in this way.
These are but a few examples of the main arguments against the practice
of genetic engineering.
I. Vocabulary List
complicated
to object to
to resist
ultimately
to escape
consequence
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pest
to yield
to last
alteration
to confirm
to affect
deformity
to appal
II. Vocabulary Exercises
Ex.1. Make up 5 sentences of your own using Active Vocabulary.
Ex.2. Translate the following words and expressions into Russian:
to advance, science fiction, to turn into reality, unacceptable, to carry out
experiments, genetically modified plants, to label, food chain
Ex.3. Translate the following words and expressions into English:
pазвитие,
неприемлемы,
производство
еды,
производить
генетически модифицированные продукты, быстро портиться, быть
обеспокоенным, произвести видоизменения, главный аргумент,
иммунная система, безнравственное использование
Ex.4. Translate into Russian:
1. Don’t ask me such complicated questions. 2. I wanted to climb the
hill, but Bill objected that he was too tired. 3. The government are resisting
the nurses’ pay demands. 4. His business yields big profits. 5. This cheap
watch won’t last (for) very long. 6. The alterations to your coat will take a
week. 7. Ultimately the President makes all decisions. 8. Some gas is
escaping from the pipe. 9. Please confirm your telephone message in
writing. 10. He affected illness so that he did not have to go to work. 11. He
is very attractive in spite of his slight deformity.
Ex.5. Translate into English using Active Vocabulary:
1. Вы против того, чтобы я покурил? 2. Она едва ли могла
сдержать свой смех. 3. Мы были вынуждены сдать наши позиции
врагу. 4. Жаркая погода продолжалась до самого сентября. 5. Они
убежали из горящего дома. 6. Министр подтвердил, что выборы будут
20 июня. 7. Мы были испуганы, когда узнали, что она была убита.
III. Speaking Practice
Ex.1. Answer the following comprehension questions:
1. What can be inferred from the title of the article?
2. What can be said about genetic engineering?
146
3. What for are the experiments being carried out to produce
genetically modified plants?
4. What do people think about genetic engineering?
5. What can be said about the morality of using genetic engineering?
6. What are the pros and cons of genetic engineering?
Ex.2. Recall the situations from the text illustrating the Active
Vocabulary.
Ex.3. Express your viewpoint on the problem (using your active
vocabulary) as if you are:
 a scientist of one of a research centers;
 a writer of science fiction;
 the author of the article;
 a doctor of one of the centers where people with physical deformities
are treated.
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Text 3
More of an Art than a Science
In February 1997 the picture of a sheep appeared on the front pages of
newspapers around the world. Dolly was the world’s first clone of another
adult animal- a genetically perfect copy of a ewe made using DNA extracted
from a single sell. Months later the same team of scientists from the Roslin
Institute in Scotland unveiled two more cloned lambs, Molly and Polly,
whose DNA had been engineered to carry a human gene so that their milk
contained a blood-clotting agent to treat haemophilia.
These first successful cloning experiments were recognized as a big step
towards “pharming” where animals are specially created to mass-produce
pharmaceutically useful compounds. But it later emerged that Dolly was the
sole success from almost 300 attempts at the Roslin Institute to clone
embryos and was suffering from premature arthritis – possibly because she
was the clone of an adult animal. Further experiments confirmed that Dolly’s
telomeres (the “caps” on the end of the chromosomes) were shorter than
normal for a sheep of her age – they indicated that she was biologically six
years old when born.
Scientists are beginning to realize that cloning remains more of an art
than a science, the success being the exception rather than the rule. Dolly’s
creator Ian Wilmut preferred to go back to the lab where he is trying to better
understand the basic biology nuclear transfer and crack some of the technical
barriers involved.
I. Vocabulary list
gene
DNA
ewe
to extract (from)
blood clotting
to emerge
to unveil
II. Vocabulary Exercises
148
Ex.1. Give as many synonyms as you can to the following words: sheep;
to unveil; to emerge; to indicate; to crack.
Ex.2. Give English equivalents to the following:
овца; репродуктивное клонирование; ДНК; ген; гемофилия;
свертывание крови; считаться огромным шагом вперед; единственный
успех; быть скорее исключением, чем правилом.
Ex.3. Express the following in one word or phrase:
 a part of a cell in a living thing that controls what it looks like, how it
grows, and how it develops;
 a substance that carries genetic information in the cells of the body;
 a female sheep;
 a process of forming thick almost solid mass when blood or milk
dries;
 a serious disease that prevents a person's blood from becoming thick;
 a sheep who was cloned by British scientists in 1997.
Ex.4. Match the synonyms:
1. to unveil
a. to remove the cover from something
2. to extract (from)
b. to find the answer to a problem or manage
to understand something that is difficult to
understand
3. to emerge
c. to become known after being hidden or
secret
4. to crack
d. to remove an object from somewhere,
especially with difficulty
Ex.5. Translate into Russian:
1. Information is transferred by genes in much the same way as it is by
words. 2. Sometimes, though, two damaged pieces of DNA get together and
the carrier pays the price. 3. And who can blame them if, after all, the right to
keep 1,000 ewes is worth in excess of Ј40,000. 4. They used torture to
extract information about their families. 5. Oils are extracted from the
plants. 6. He developed a blood clot on his brain and died. 7. Baxter
emerged from the building and walked across the parking lot to a waiting
car. 8. The government has unveiled its plans for the future of Britain's
armed forces. 9. The statue was unveiled by the Queen.
149
Ex.6. Translate into English:
1. У некоторых женщин есть ген, наличие которого увеличивает
риск возникновения рака груди. 2. Иногда процесс воспроизведения
ДНК не дает ожидаемых результатов. 3. На поле не было никого, кроме
двух-трех овец. 4. Он извлёк маленькую записную книжку из бокового
кармана. 5. Употребление в пищу чеснока помогает предотвратить
свертываемость крови, тем самым снижая риск сердечного приступа.
6. Появились новые доказательства, которые противоречат ранее
выдвинутой версии событий. 7. Во Владивостоке был торжественно
открыт памятник Борцам за власть Советов.
III. Speaking and Written Practice
Ex.1. Answer these questions:
1.
What have you learnt about the first successful experiment on
cloning an animal?
2.
What makes it possible to clone smth or smb?
3.
Why did scientist clone Molly and Polly? What was interesting
about these lambs?
4.
Would you like to have a perfect clone of yourself? Why? Why
not?
5.
Do you favor cloning? Why? Why not?
Ex.2. Find some interesting facts about animals cloned and share it with
your class-mates.
Ex.3. Say everything you know about:
 Dolly;
 Molly and Polly;
 blood clotting;
 ‘pharming’.
Ex.4. Render the article into English using the active vocabulary:
Группа ученых из Шотландии удивила мир еще одним
достижением - она вывела точные генетические копии еще двух овец,
получивших имена Полли и Молли.
На этот раз ученые произвели клонирование с четкой
прагматической целью. Они особым образом ввели в организм овец и
человеческие гены. Ценность генетического клонирования овец
заключается в том, что оно открывает новые пути лечения многих
неизлечимых заболеваний человека. Таких, например, как кистозная
150
болезнь легких, поджелучной и других желез, эмфизема легких,
гемофилия и другие.
Шотландские специалисты ввели овцам человеческие гены,
которые заставляют овец в их молоке вырабатывать особые лечебные
средства. Их затем экстрагируют, очищают и используют как
лекарственные препараты. Здесь дело не только в том, что получены
ценнейшие лекарства новым способом. Их преимущество в том, что они
не дают побочных эффектов для лечения болезней человека. Овца,
таким образом, превращается в биофармакологический заводик. Ну как
после всего сказанного не поклониться братьям нашим меньшим.
Особенно клонированным.
Ex.5. Imagine you are the editor of a newspaper. Write an editorial (an
opinion article) discussing the ethics of animal cloning. Give
your newspaper’s opinion on what has happened (see the text).
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Text 4
Everything You Need to Know about Cloning
Plus, what's at stake if Congress makes human cloning a criminal
offense
Less than a year after President George W. Bush set limits on
government-funded stem-cell research—the cellular building blocks that
develop into different parts of the body—he has stepped into another
contentious scientific debate. This time, the issue is whether to prohibit
human cloning. Bush called for passage of a Senate bill sponsored by Senator
Sam Brownback that would make it a crime to carry out human cloning. Here
are some questions and answers to help clarify the debate:
What is cloning?
"Cloning" simply means copying. Identical twins are clones, copies
created naturally when cells divide in the womb. Scientists routinely produce
clones of all kinds of human and animal cells for research purposes. The
issue is whether to make it a crime to do experiments in which a copy of
somebody's DNA is inserted into a human egg.
Why is that controversial?
Human cloning involves taking someone's DNA—extracted from, say, a
skin cell or a hair follicle—and inserting it into an unfertilized human egg
from which the existing DNA has been removed. Such an egg could
theoretically develop into a human being if implanted in a uterus. Most
researchers, biotech companies, politicians, and many others oppose the use
of cloning to create children. Others say it is unethical because it is so unsafe.
Given the present state of knowledge, such children could be born with
severe deformities, if they survived at all.
But aren't researchers more interested in cloning for its therapeutic
benefits?
Here's where things start to get a little tricky. Those who oppose cloning
on moral grounds believe that these embryos are human beings and therefore
experimentation on them, even at their earliest stages of development, is
152
wrong. Moreover, they fear cloning can't be partially restricted: Allowing the
technique for research purposes could lead to reproductive cloning, since the
same techniques are involved. Scientists note, however, that the process by
which children could be created can also be used to produce some types of
human cells. Because the human egg grows, divides, and gives rise to all the
cells of the body, researchers think they will be able to use the genetically
altered egg to produce a lab dish full of certain kinds of human cells, such as
neurons or pancreatic cells. Many consider this research to be ethical and
very promising.
Why would anyone want to make these specialized cells in the
laboratory?
The potential benefits of therapeutic cloning are huge. Suppose you've
been the victim of a stroke or Alzheimer's disease or some other condition
resulting in the loss of brain cells. Implanting new brain cells might correct or
ease the symptoms. But such implants could be rejected by the body if they
came from another donor in the same way that liver or kidney transplants are
often rejected.
With therapeutic cloning, doctors could theoretically take a sample of
your DNA, put it into a human egg, and grow neurons genetically identical to
your own— and thus unlikely to be rejected. That's the theory, anyway. It
may be years before such techniques are perfected. Proponents say blocking
the research would make it impossible to see if it works.
What kinds of diseases could be treated by therapeutic cloning?
In addition to their value in the treatment of strokes or Alzheimer's
disease, cloned neurons could be used to correct the movement disorders of
Parkinson's disease or to restore movement to people who are paralyzed.
Cloned pancreatic cells could be transplanted into diabetics to produce the
insulin that their own pancreases are not producing. Eventually, many other
diseases might become treatable using cloned cells. Again, however, more
research is needed to determine the potential benefits.
Is any of this work being done now?
Researchers are at the very earliest stages of experimenting with such
treatments. Work is just beginning with neuron implants in Parkinson's, for
example, though no one has yet tried the experiment with cloned cells.
Researchers do not yet know how to transform a generically altered egg into
neurons, pancreatic cells, or other specialized cells.
So far, only one U.S. company has claimed to have cloned a human
embryo for this type of research: Advanced Cell Technology Inc. in
Worcester, Mass. Other companies, such as Geron Corp. in Menlo Park,
Calif., and Infigen Inc. in DeForest, Wis., have cloned animals. Because of
the difficulty of cloning human cells and the fact that it might be made a
crime, other U.S. companies have hesitated to enter the field.
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Can't much of this work be done through stem-cell research?
Stem cells can be used to treat many of these conditions. Bush's decision
on stem cells allows researchers to study how to convert stem cells into
neurons or other kinds of cells. But stem cells have a drawback: they carry
the genes of the donor they came from, not those of the patient who needs a
transplant. Thus, they do not solve the potential problem of rejection.
Who else has taken sides in the debate?
Many conservative and right-to-life groups support making human
cloning a crime. Many scientific groups have taken the opposite side. 40
Nobel laureates signed a letter saying that "by declaring scientifically
valuable biomedical research illegal, Senator Brownback's legislation ...
would have a chilling effect on all scientific research in the U. S."
What effect would passage of Brown-back's bill have on the
biotechnology industry?
For now, it wouldn't have a significant economic effect because so little
of this research is now being done. But there is a danger that the U.S. could
lose the lead on this research to England. It allows therapeutic cloning on
embryos up to 14 days old, but forbids the use of cloning to produce a child.
Moreover, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents 1,100
biotechnology companies, is concerned that the bill could set a precedent that
would encourage opponents to try to block other kinds of biomedical
research. The Brownback bill could deter researchers from doing any work
remotely related to cloning for fear that it might land them in jail.
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