IV. Comprehension

Exercise 8. Answer the following questions.

1. How are the materials used for making clothing called?

2. What are the textile materials made of?

3. What does the combination of fiber with fiber result in?

4. What is the form of all vegetable and animal substances?

5. What fibrous substances suit textile workers?

6. What properties should textile fiber possess?

7. What fibers come to us from prehistoric times?

8. What is the division of fibers according to their origin? Give examples of each group of fibers.

Exercise 9. Say whether it is true or false, if false say why. Begin with:

1. I fully / quite agree with you.

2. I can’t agree with you here.

3. To the best of my knowledge.

4. In my opinion.

1. Both spinning and weaving are the combination of fiber with fiber.

2. The fibers of all substances are suitable for spinning and weaving.

3. Only substances of vegetable origin are suitable for textile workers.

4. Chemical fibers are called man-made fibers.

5. Not all man-made fibers are called chemical fibers.

6. Chemical fibers are the achievement of science of the 18^th century.

7. Cotton, flax, wool and silk are natural fibers.

V. Oral Practice

Exercise 10. Retell the text according to the plan:

1. The combination of textile fibers.

2. The most common material in the world.

3. Fibers suitable for textile purposes.

4. Principal textile fibers.

5. The division of textile fibers.

VI. Reading and Comprehension.

Exercise 11. Read text B “The textile fibers”.

Text b The Textile Fibers

Throughout past centuries a few simple fibers, cotton, flax, wool and silk, have been used mainly for making clothes. Today all these fibers but silk, because of its scarcity and high price, are also used for industrial purposes. Cotton is used for reinforcing motorcar tires and plastic materials, linen is used for wing coverings on airplanes and wool fibers are used as heat and sound isolation in building construction.

Many fibers are available from natural sources (all plants contain fibers) but only a small number can be useful for textile purposes. More so there are no natural fibers that can compete in usefulness with cotton, wool, linen and silk for modern textile purposes.

These fibers have many advantages but there are also disadvantages, so during the past eighty years men has looked for and found the ways to manufacture fibers possessing properties to any taste. The natural fibers vary considerably and are affected by climatic conditions over which man has little or no control at all. But man-made fibers can be produced having all desirable properties: strength, luster, handle and can be died easily.

Moreover, the cost of these man-made fibers is relatively low and materials made from them are not too expensive as well.

However, there are man-made fibers such as viscose and rayons which have to be obtained from natural sources. Thus, cellulose which forms the basis of manufacture of rayons has to be made from cotton wastes or wood. So, these man-made fibers are not quite independent of nature. But it was not the limit. Men has been learning to produce new and new types of synthetic fibers made from chains of molecules of air, coal and oil.

Exercise 12. Answer the questions.

1. What substances have been used mainly for making clothes?

2. What natural fibers can be used for industrial purposes?

3. Why is silk not used for industrial purposes?

4. Why has men looked for the ways of obtaining new textile fibers?

5. What are viscose and rayon made of?

6. What are synthetic fibers made of?