I. Decide whether the following statements are true or false according to the text:

1. The Sunshine Skyway is probably the best known of the several world's longest cable-stayed concrete bridges.

2. The bridge is famous because of its colour.

3. More than 300 precast steel segments were linked together with high-strength steel cables to form the roadway.

4. Large concrete islands, called dolphins, were installed to protect the new bridge from ships.

5. The pipes were painted a brilliant yellow to reflect the colour of taxicabs in the Sunshine State.

6. Forty-foot-wide roadways run on either side of the cables and the design enables drivers to have a safe moving.

7. A violent thunderstorm destroyed a four-mile steel cantilever bridge.

8. The bridge was named after Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway.

9. Engineers designed the bridge to lift apr. 200 feet above the water.

II. Answer the following questions:

1. Why is the Sunshine Skyway so popular and famous?

2. Why did building the bridge meet an opposition?

3. What was the main purpose to build the bridge after the war?

4. What can you say about the disaster in 1980?

5. What decision was made after the disaster? What would you have done if you had been a chief engineer?

6. What was the reason to use dolphins? What are they?

7. The Sunshine Skyway was renamed. After whom was it renamed? Why?

LANGUAGE FOCUS

III. Match the meanings of these terms with their definition:

1. a vertical structure which supports the ends of a multi-span superstructure at a location between abutments. 2. mixture of gravel, sand, cement, and water 3. underground passage dug through a hill or under a road, river, esp. for a railway or road 4. great or sudden misfortune; catastrophe 5. a structural member which projects beyond a supporting column or wall and is counterbalanced and/or supported at only one end 6. the top surface of a bridge which carries the traffic

a. navigable part of a waterway b. broad curving inlet of the sea c. cast in its final stage before positioning d. amount usu. or actually carried e. hinder or neutralize by contrary action f. a harbour g. hanging, pendant h. to be in equilibrium

IV. Complete the table with the missing words:

Noun	verb	adjective / participle
		suspended
	to span
	to replace
Decision
		supplemental
Support
		structural
	to construct

Choose any 6 words and make sentences with them.

V. Say in other words (use synonyms or terms instead of words and word-combinations in italics):

The Forth Railway Bridge bridges the navigable channel called the Firth of Forth. The Sunshine Skyway bridge stretches over the Tampa Bay. The former is a bridge made of cantilevers projecting from piers and connected by girders, the latter is a variation of suspension bridge in which the tension members extend from one or more towers at varying angles to carry the deck. The connecting spans of the Firth of Forth bridge, which are sustained entirely by the main horizontal structure members supporting vertical loads by resisting bending they connect, are built minimally to be as light as they can be. To say about the Sunshine Skyway construction, more than 300 concrete segments ready for use were connected together with high-strength steel thick strong metal ropes to form the part of the road used by vehicles.