Unit 15 Ivory-billed Woodpecker

Pre-listening tasks

Before listening pay attention to the following words and collocations and their translation. They will help you to understand the text.

woodpecker – дятел

plumage – оперение

demand – требовать

songfest – спевка

eavesdrop – подслушивать

voiceprint – запись, образец голоса

Chipping Sparrow – воробьиная овсянка

I. Fill on the gaps with the following words and word combinations.

relationship, different from, identical, to defend, enormous, males, species, wingspan, to attract, setting up

1) The Ivory-bill is an ________ bird with a meter-wide ________.

2) The ________ mostly do the singing.

3) They sing both ________ their territory and also ________ fertile females.

4) Hearing those two ________ songs fro, there two males just told of their life story.

5) It said where he is ________ his territory, the special________ that this young bird has with the older bird.

6) The first half-second of each of his eight songs is completely ________ the first half second of any other song.

7) The bird kingdom has 10,00 ________.

After listening tasks

I. Listen to the interview and check your answers.

II. Continue the following sentences. You don’t have to use the exact words from the text.

1. Donald Kroodsman explores why birds sing and how…

2. The females are listening, making choices and the males never…

3. Some birds recite long, complicated never-ending phrases, while other birds…

4. He hopes the book helps people to focus more carefully on…

III. Listen again and check your answers.

Unit 16 Diseases that Spread from Animals to Humans

Pre-listening tasks

Before listening pay attention to the following words and collocations and their translation. They will help you to understand the text.

civet – циветта

prairie dog – луговая собачка

surveillance – надзор, наблюдение

span – заполнять; простираться

concern – тревога, беспокойство

slums – трущобы

breeding ground – место размножения

in a concentrated fashion – сконцентрировано

I. What diseases which spread from animals to humans do you know? What is SARS, monkeypox?

II. Think of words and word-combinations which are similar in their meanings to the following words and word-combinations.

to catch (a disease), to find sth. that is suitable to sth., to carry from one place or person to another, to appear, dramatically, to give medical attention, to determine

III. Do you remember the rules of making comparative forms of adjectives? Make the following adjectives comparative.

much, many - ________, frequently - ________, small - ________, thin - ________

After listening tasks

I. Listen and find out if any of the words and word-combinations you have found doing exercise I in Pre-listening section are used in the interview. Note them down. Do you remember what facts are these numbers from the interview refer to?

1,000

100

84

800

II. Listen again. Check your answers. While listening note down all the adjectives in the comparative form.

III. Decide which of the following statements are false. Correct them.

1. It is believed that civets passed SARS to humans.

2. The monkeypox virus was passed to a Gambian rat by prairie dogs.

3. Global warming can be one of the causes of transmission of viruses from one species to another.

4. A global surveillance system helped to reduce SARS.

5. According to Dr.Griffin all the newly emerging viruses are highly infectious.

IV. Think of the problems touched upon in the interview and discuss them in class.

Unit 17 New targets for possible AIDS drugs

Pre-listening tasks

Before listening pay attention to the following words and collocations and their translation. They will help you to understand the text.

to hail – приветствовать

to identify – идеентифицировать

reproduction – воспроизведение, размножение

to disrupt – нарушать

sophisticated – сложный, утонченный

insight – понимание, проникновение в суть

to circumvent – обмануть, обойти, перехитрить

to hijack – совершать угон, захватить

to bind – связывать(ся), привязывать(ся)

to be essential – неотъемлемый, важнейший, необходимый

to treat – лечить

treatment – лечение, терапия, курс лечения

to tolerate – переносить, выносить