IV. Ask your friend:

• What professions he knows

• Why he has chosen this profession

• Who influenced the choice of his profession

• Whether he knows much of his profession

• Whether he knows about advantages and disadvantages of his profession

V. Answer the questions:

• What is engineering?

• What must an engineer know?

• Where do you study?

• What subjects do you have?

• Why do you want to become an engineer?

• Do you have practice anywhere?

• Is you future profession useful?

Land Reclamation Faculty My Speciality

I. Repeat the words:

arid, artificial, available, to consider, cotton, desert, drainage, environment, exces­sive, fertile, fodder crops, humidity, installation, irrigation, marshy, pollution, to pre­vent, to supply, task, to take measures, utilization, yield.

II. Find the meanings of the words using their Russian equivalents:

construction, efficiency, erosion, to guarantee, hydrology, hydraulic intensification, project, principle, reconstruction, reservoir, total, theoretical mechanics.

III. Make up sentences using the given words:

1. supplies, region, this canal, water to, arid.

2. due to, the yields, fodder crops, last, increased, of, irrigation, year.

3. reservoir, to prevent, it is, the pollution, necessary, of water.

4. the environment, urgent measures, to protect, are being taken.

5. reclaimed lands, 30 million, there is about, total, hectares, of, area.

6. in the construction, these, took part, of large, students, a, water reservoir.

7. is, land reclamation, of, an, the intensification, important, of factor, agricultural production.

IV. Read, translate and retell the text. My Speciality

I study at Altai Agricultural University. I am a second-year student of the Land Reclamation Faculty. The faculty trains qualified specialists for melioration work in our country. The land reclamation is considered to be an important factor in the intensification of agricultural production. Irrigation of fields in arid regions and drainage of areas with excessive humidity guarantee high and stable yields of grain, vegetable, sugar beets, cotton and fodder crops.

Reclamation engineers take part in the construction and reconstruction of irri­gation projects. They build canals, artificial lakes and water reservoirs for supplying water to arid and desert lands. Thousands of hectares of marshy land are drained and become fertile every year. The total area of irrigated and drained lands in our country is now over 30 million hectares and it will increase to 40-45 million ha by 2010.

The main tasks in land reclamation are to increase the efficiency of irrigation system and to make better use of the reclaimed lands.

Reclamation engineers are also responsible for the rational utilization of natu­ral resources and for the protection of environment. They take measures to prevent the pollution of water reservoirs and to control soil erosion.

Irrigators must have good knowledge of different soils, water requirements of various crops and available water supply. They must know different methods of irri­gation and types of drainage as well as the principle of operation and application of modern irrigation installations.

In order to become qualified specialists students of the Land Reclamation Fac­ulty study many theoretical subjects such as physics, hydrology, hydraulics and theo­retical mechanics and have a practical course of studies on training farms and large irrigation projects of our region.