Банкова НумералсНумберс Анд Фигурес ин Профессионал 2011

Exercise 13

On an airplane.

1) Read and listen to the conversation (№ 5).

Check-in Clerk : Here’s your boarding pass, ma’am. Flight CG186 to Vancouver. Seat 29K. Please be at Gate 11 at two thirty.

Alicia: Thank you very much.

2) Listen (№ 6) to the recording. Complete the boarding information.

3) Listen (№ 7) to the announcement at the airport and complete the sentences.

a.First, passengers in rows ___ through ___.

b.Next, passengers in row ___ through ___.

c.Next, passengers in Business Class, rows ___ through ___.

d.Finally, passengers in First Class, rows ___ through ___.

Exercise 14

Listen to the public announcements (№ 8). Which of them contain numbers?

Complete the chart below.

Exercise 15

Match a question with a number. Practise saying the numbers aloud. Listen and check (№ 9).

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Exercise 16

Look at the description of the Devereux Egg III (portable storage media for programs, pictures, sound and video). Listen to the rest of the conversation and complete the information (№ 10).

DIMENSIONS:

Height: ___________________________________

Width: ___________________________________

Length: ___________________________________

STORAGE CAPACITY: __________________MB

CONNECTIVITY:

1)________ 2)________ 3)________

Exercise 17

Listen to the conversations. What are the different ways of saying the number 0? Put down all the numbers you hear and explain in which situations they are used. (№11)

Exercise 18

Listen to the news broadcasts. They contain fifteen numbers. Write them down, and then practice them. (№12)

Exercise 19

Look at the chart below. Speak about the countries using the information given in this chart.

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The Greatest Bridge in the World

Verrazano, an Italian about whom little is known, sailed into New York Harbour in 1524 and named it Angouleme. He described it as ‘a very agreeable situation located within two small hills in the midst of which flowed a great river.’ Though Verrazano is by no means considered to be a great explorer, his name will probably remain immortal, for on November 21st, 1964, the greatest bridge in the world was named after him.

The Verrazano Bridge, which was designed by Othmar Ammann, joins Brooklyn to Staten Island. It has a span of 4260 feet. The bridge is so long that the shape of the earth had to be taken into account by its designer. Two great towers support four huge cables. The sixteen months to build. Above the surface of the water, the towers rise to a height of nearly 700 feet. They support the cables from which the bridge has been suspended. Each of the four cables contains 26,108 lengths of wire. It has been estimated that if the bridge were packed with cars, it would still only be carrying a third of its total capacity. However, size and strengths are not the only important things about this bridge. Despite its immensity, it is both simple and elegant, fulfilling its designer’s dream to create ‘an enormous object drawn as faintly as possible.’

Exercise 23

Read the text and answer the questions. Then, retell the text trying to mention all the figures and dates.

1.On what date did Bleriot and Latham arrive at Calais?

2.Did it look as if the would be race or not?

3.When would it take place?

4.Why did Latham not take part in the race?

5.Did Bleriot make a short test flight before setting out or not?

6.How long did it take him to fly across the Channel?

7.Who greeted him when he arrived at Dover?

8.How near to Dover did Latham fly the following week?

9.Why did he have to land on the sea for the second time?

Pioneer Pilots

In 1908 Lord Northcliffe offered a prize of £1000 to the first man who would fly across the English Channel. Over a year passed before the first attempt was made. On July 19th, 1990, in the early morning,

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Hubert Latham took off from the French coast in his plane the ‘Antoinette IV’. He had traveled only seven miles across the Channel when his engine failed and he was forced to land on the sea. The ‘Antoinette IV’ floated on the water until Latham was picked up by a ship.

Two days later, Louis Bleriot arrived near Callais with a plane called ‘No. XI’. Bleriot had been making planes since 1905 and this was his latest model. A week before, he had completed a successful overland flight during which he covered twenty-six miles. Latham, however, did not give up easily. He, too, arrived near Calais on the same day with a new ‘Antoinette’. It looked as if there would be an exciting race across the Channel. Both planes were going to take of on July 25th , but Latham failed to get up early enough. After making a short test flight at 4.15 a.m., Bleriot set off half an hour later. His great flight lasted thir- ty-seven minutes. When he landed near Dover, the first person to greet him was a local policeman. Latham made another attempt a week later and got within half a mile of Dover, but he was unlucky again. His engine failed and he landed on the sea for the second time.

Exercise 24

Read the text. Write 10 questions about the details of the competition organized by a company of biscuit manufacturer and the biscuit which won the first prize. Let your group-mates the questions.

Wanted: a Large Biscuit Tin

No one can avoid being influenced by advertisements. Advertisers discovered years ago that all of us love to get something for nothing. An advertisement which begins with the magic word FREE can rarely go wrong. They devise hundreds of competitions which will enable us to win huge sums of money. Radio and television have made it possible for advertisers to capture the attention of millions of people in this way.

During a radio programme, a company of biscuit manufacturer once asked listeners to bake biscuits and send them to their factory. They offered to pay $2 a pound for the biggest biscuit baked by a listener. The response to this competition was tremendous. Before long, biscuits of all shapes and sizes began arriving at the factory. One lady brought in a biscuit on a wheelbarrow. It weighed nearly 500 pounds. A little later, a man came along with a biscuit which occupied the whole boot of his car. All the biscuits that were sent were carefully weighed. The largest

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was 713 pounds. It seemed certain that his would win the prize. But just before the competition closed, a lorry arrived at the factory with a truly colossal biscuit which weighed 2,400 pounds. It had been baked by a college student who had used over 1000 pounds of flour, 800 pounds of sugar, 200 pounds of fat, and 400 pounds of various other ingredients. It was so heavy that a crane had to be used to remove it from the lorry. The manufacturers had to pay more money than they had anticipated, for they bought the biscuit from the student for $4,000.

Exercise 25

a)Read the text and then explain how Dickie bought a fur coat for his wife.

b)In no more than 250 words write an actual or imaginary description of an accentric person. Your composition should be in three or four paragraphs and contain dates, numbers and figures.

A Lovable Eccentriс

True eccentrics never deliberately set out to draw attention to themselves. They disregard social conventions without being conscious that they are doing anything extraordinary. This invariably wins them the love and respect of others, for they add colour to the dull routine of everyday life.

Up to the time of his death, Richard Colson was one of the most notable figures in our town. He was a shrewd and wealthy business-man, but the ordinary town-folk hardly knew anything about this side of his life. He was known to us all as Dickie and his eccentricity had become legendary.

Dickie disliked snobs intensely. Though he own a large car, he hardly ever used it, preferring always to go on foot. He never carried an umbrella. One day, he walked into an expensive shop after having been caught in a particularly heavy shower. He wanted to buy a £300 watch for his wife, but he was in such a bedraggled condition that an assistant refused to serve him. Dickie left the shop without a word and returned carrying a large cloth bad. As it was extremely heavy, he dumped it on a counter. The assistant asked him to leave, but Dickie paid no attention to him and requested to see the manager. Recognizing who the customer was, the manager was most apologetic and reprimanded the assistant severely. When Dickie was given the watch, he presented the assistant

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with the cloth bag. It contained £300 in pennies. He insisted on the assistant’s counting the money before he left – 72,000 pennies in all! On other occasion, he invited a number of important critics to see his collection of modern paintings. This exhibition received a great deal of attention in the press, for though the pictures were supposed to be the work of famous artists, they had in fact been painted by Dickie. It took him four years to stage this elaborate joke simply to prove that critics do not always know what they are talking about.

Exercise 26

First, read the text aloud. Then, read it silently for information. Speak about the author’s idea.

In a sense, 1 : Sun = Moon, and 1 : Moon = Sun!

1 : 365.242 = 0.0027379, which in days is 3 minutes and 56 seconds, the difference between sidereal and solar days, while 1: 27.322 = 0.0366, which in days is 52 minutes, the difference between lunar and solar days.

(sidereal day [sai′diəriəl] – звездные сутки)

Exercise 27

Read the texts below and retell them paying attention to the numbers. Try to mention as many figures as possible.

1)

On August 6, 1945, an atom bomb dubbed “Little Boy” was dropped from an American B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay on the city of Hiroshima. It detonated at 8:16 a.m. at a height of 1,900 ft. Of Hiroshima’s 330,000 inhabitants, approximately 70,000 were killed instantly. By the end of 1945, the death toll had risen to 140,000. “Little Boy” used the gun assembly design and uranium-235 as the fissionable material. Because the gun design was an inefficient means of causing the chain reaction, about 50 kg of 89% U-235 and 14kg of 50% U-235 ended up being used. Of this it is estimated that only about 2% actually fissioned. Three days later another atom bomb, dubbed “Fat Man”, was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Approximately 40,000 were killed instantly.

(gun assembly principle – принцип быстрого соединения, т.е. «выстрелом» докритических масс в ядерной бомбе)

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2)

A hurricane is a revolving storm originating at latitudes between 5 and 29 degrees north or south of the equator, when the surface tempera-

ture of the ocean is above 27 0 C.

A central calm area, called the eye, is surrounded by inwardly spiraling winds (counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere) up to 333 kph. A hurricane is accompanied by lightning and torrential rain, and can cause extensive destruction.

In meteorology, a hurricane is a wind of force 12 or more on the Beaufort [‘boufət] scale.

The Beaufort scale is the system of recording wind velocity, devised by the British Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort in 1860. It is a numerical scale ranging from 0 to 17, calm being indicated by 0 and a hurricane by 12; hurricane force is indicated by 13-17. In 1874 the scale received international recognition; it was modified in 1926. Measurements are made at 0 ft above the ground level.

According to the Beaufort scale, gale is characterized by air speed of 62-74 kph, the wind is so strong that it breaks branches from trees. During the storm (air speed is 88-101 kph) trees are uprooted and week buildings collapse. Hurricane is characterized by violent winds with air velocity over 118 kph, which cause widespread structural damage.

The worst hurricanes of the late 20th century include Flora in the Caribbean (6,000 casualties), Fifi in Honduras (2,000 casualties), Mitch in Central America (10,000). The latest terrible hurricane, named Katrina, occurred quite recently in the US.

Exercise 28

a) Read the text and translate it into Russian paying special attention to the highlighted words. Look them up in a dictionary if necessary.

Decimals and Fractions

A manufacturer is thinking about giving both metric measurements and imperial measurements in its product specification. One of the company’s engineers is giving his opinion on the idea in a meeting.

‘One problem is, when you convert from metric to imperial you no longer have whole numbers – you get long decimal numbers. For example, one millimeter is nought point nought three nine three seven inches as a decimal. So to be manageable, decimals have to be rounded

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