What's Up American Idioms
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124 Success
V. WRITING EXERCISE
A. Finish It Up
DIRECTIONS: Finish this entry in your diary. Use as many idioms as you can.
128 Sickness
R E A D I NG SELECTION
DIRECTIONS: Read the following story silently. Then do the reading exercises that follow.
Fight |
It Off |
In the fourteenth century, |
an epidemic 1 of bubonic plague, |
a terrible disease, killed 25 million people in Europe. W h e n the
epidemic broke out, people called it the "Black Death." It spread w h e n fleas2 carrying the disease came in contact with rats.3
When the fleas bit the rats, the disease went into the rats' bloodstreams. When the rats died, the fleas spread the disease to humans. People w h o got the disease threw up, and parts of their bodies became swollen.4
In the twentieth century, an epidemic of another plague, called AIDS (acquired i m m u n e deficiency syndrome), broke out.
Like bubonic plague, AIDS is spread through the bloodstream.
In healthy people, the |
i m m u n e system protects the body |
from disease. AIDS causes |
the i m m u n e system to break down. |
Without the help of the i m m u n e system, the AIDS victim suffers |
|
from one sickness after |
another, including unusual types of |
cancer5 and pneumonia . |
6 |
In 1981, the first patient7 was treated for AIDS. In the following years, thousands died of this twentieth-century plague.
1.The spreading of a contagious disese.
2.A small bloodsucking insect that jumps from place to place.
3.A long-tailed rodent that is larger than a mouse.
4.Bigger, increased in size.
5.Deadly tumors.
6.Disease of the lungs.
7.A sick person.
