Watching and vocabulary (collocations) wild australasia part 3, island arc, episode 3

Match the words.

1. coral	volcanoes
2. hundreds of	predators
3. coastal	species
4. different	line
5. prevent from	reef
6. extinct	islands

Key: 1. coral reef; 2. hundreds of islands; 3. coastal line; 4. different species; 5. prevent from predators; 6. extinct volcanoes

WATCHING, VOCABULARY and READING

JOURNEY OF LIFE

LAND GRAB, EPISODE 1

GETTING STARTED

I. Match the words with their definitions.

1. uninhabitable and hostile land

2. three dimensional and harsh world

3. solar radiation

4. extraordinary variety

5. full of

6. designed for life

a) the light of the sun

b) very unusual variety

c) unfriendly and threatening

d) containing

e) fit and adaptable for life

f) a severe or difficult in length, height and weight place

II. Read the script and choose the correct answer for each question.

How did life conquer this hostile world? Take an evolutionary journey that one day lead to us. Over the millennia this harsh new world was invaded by a few pioneering forms easy evolved to a multitude of animal designs able to cope with the extreme life on land. Our family, the mammals, is just one of the results. Every living thing is linked by the branches in the tree of life, because all life started in the sea where temperature hardly changes and water protects against a pull of gravity and the burning sun. The sea was the first laboratory of life. And for more than three fourths of life history it was home to every living thing. This was mostly gentle area for soft body creatures like jellyfish. Jellyfish are 95% water and have no skeleton at all. Water suspends all life in the three dimensional world. For hundreds of millions of years plants could only exist in the sea. One group of sea creatures had just the right kit to get up and go – the arthropods – with their hard-jointed outer skeletons.

1. What is the main idea of the episode?

a) The three dimensional world is harsh and inhospitable

b) The sea was the first laboratory of life

c) For hundreds of millions of years plants could only exist in the sea

2. What can you learn from the episode?

a) how gentle living things are

b) what it’s like to live in aquatic environment

c) why the arthropods become evolutionary successful

3. What do we find out about the planet over 3.8 billion years ago?

a) it attracts tourists from abroad

b) for living things it’s an alien, hostile, and inhospitable land

c) local people do water sports there

4. What does the narrator think about mammals?

a) that mammals are just one of the evolutionary results

b) he feels sorry for them

c) that they are not able to cope with the extremes of life

5. Which of these may be the title of the episode?

a) the special equipment

b) the harsh world

c) the pioneering forms with outer skeletons

Key: I. 1. c; 2. f; 3. a; 4. b; 5. d; 6. e; II: 1. b; 2. c; 3. b; 4. a; 5. c