Vocabulary practise

1. Fill in the missing words in the appropriate form.

1. When someone inflicts a wound, fracture or other physical hurt on somebody he __________ that person.

2. Six other ___________ were still erupting.

3. That table will ___________ if you sit on it.

4. A ________ is a lot of water falling or blowing rapidly or violently.

5. __________ is that which follows something and arises from it.

6. I was proceeding through _________ of rain.

7. A place or region that is ____________ has a lot of volcanoes or was created by volcanoes. These lands are ____ and were formed comparatively recently.

8. As far as I know, Mount Erebus is an active ________.

9. ___________ is an occurrence, generally unpleasant, which is widespread or intense.

10. Don’t worry; they’ll come to no __________.

11. A person’s indirect power over men, events or things is called _____________.

12. To injure physically (usually objects) means to ______________ them.

13. ______________ is a great sea wave produced by submarine earth movement or volcanic eruption.

14. The building was destroyed by a stream whish swelled to a raging _________ when the rains came.

15. Before the rains meeting could end _____________ rain began to pour.

2 Match the words in the left column with their synonyms or explanations in the right column:

vaporize radioactive material fission decay release blast settle over the earth

radioisotopes to give off break down explosion return to the earth splitting to turn into gas fallout emit

3. Read the following text about fallout and match the headlines given in the box to the appropriate paragraph.

Fallout is radioactive material that settles over the earth's surface following a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere. It consists of atoms known as radioactive isotopes or radioisotopes. These isotopes form from the fission (splitting) of uranium or plutonium in a nuclear weapon. Radioisotopes also form when radiation that results from the explosion causes other atoms nearby to become radioactive.

After the explosion, the radioisotopes in the air, on the ground, and in the bodies of human beings and other organisms decay (break down) into more stable isotopes. They do so by emitting radiation in the form of alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays. Exposure to large amounts of radiation can result in immediate sickness and even death. Exposure to radiation over longer periods can cause cancer and damage genes.

The testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere once produced large amounts of fallout. Today, fallout has been almost eliminated by underground testing. However, a serious accident in a nuclear reactor can release the same radioisotopes that occur in fallout. In 1986, an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine released radioisotopes that scattered across the Western Hemisphere.

How fallout is produced. All nuclear explosions produce a giant fireball of intensely hot gases. Everything inside the fireball or in contact with it is vaporized (turned into a gas). When an explosion occurs close to the earth's surface, the fireball vaporizes soil, vegetation, and buildings. It then begins to rise, carrying the vaporized material with it. As the fireball rises, a low-pressure area forms beneath it. Air rushes in to fill this partial vacuum carrying along with it dust, dirt, and other small particles. Much of this debris may be lifted up through the atmosphere along with the fireball.

As the vaporized materials rise and cool, some of them condense into solid particles. Atoms of the various radioactive elements produced by the explosion cling to these particles. These radioisotopes eventually return to the earth as fallout. Fallout particles range in size from fine invisible dust to ash of snowflake size.