К.В. Пиоттух - Английский язык. Базовый курсю. Pre-intermediate. Часть 1 (1254788), страница 14
Текст из файла (страница 14)
From childhood, this man who was to achieve so much was almost completely deaf. He could hear only the loudest noises, but this did not trouble him. He believed that it drove him to reading when he was young, provided silence in which he could think, and saved him from small talk.
He enjoyed music, and he could «listen» by putting one end of a pencil between his teeth and the other end on the phonograph.The vibrations came through perfectly. The phonograph was his favourite of all his inventions.
Father never stopped working. And he was not afraid of growing old. At the age of 80, he began to study botany, a science – new to him. He wanted to find a North American plant which would produce rubber. He experimented with 17, 000 kinds of plants and finally got rubber from an ordinary roadside plant, the goldenrod.
Finally, at 84, his health started to fail. Newspapermen arrived at our door to keep watch. Every hour the news was sent out to them: «the light still burns.» But at 3:24 in the morning of October 18, 1931, the word came: « The light is out.»
On the day he was buried, all electric lights in the nation were to be turned off for one minute in his honour. But this seemed too dangerous and costly. Instead, only certain lights were turned low for a minute. The work of the nation was not stopped, even for a second. Thomas Edison, I am sure, would have wanted in that way.
2. Read the text again and discuss in pairs the answer to the questions:
1. Who wrote the story about Thomas Alva Edison?
2. What did the great inventor look like?
3. What did the author remember the great man for?
4. What life episodes did the author choose to describe Edison as a father?
5. What were the secrets of Edison’s success?
6. Which of Edison’s inventions were the most successful?
7. Which inventions of other scientists were made by Edison into practical things?
8. How many years had been spent on disappointing experiments by the time Edison lost his laboratory in a fire?
9. What made Edison’s son feel worried about his father on the day of the fire?
10 Why were people sure that Edison had a magic power?
11. How did the contemporaries give honour to Edison on the day he was buried?
Vocabulary
3. Underline the following words in the text then match a verb and a noun to make verb patterns.
VERB | NOUN |
to explodeto have to drive to put to keep to go | fishingwatch over something money into experiments somebody to something money troubles firecrackers |
4. Complete the sentences with word patterns from the box above. Mind the tense.
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Sometimes the scientists who worked at Edison’s laboratory didn’t get a salary for months, because he _____ _______ ___ _______ .
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Although Edison made a fortune in motion-picture machine sales his family often _____ _______ _________ .
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When fire started in the laboratories chemicals ______ like ______ .
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Edison was deaf and he was sure that it ______ him ___ _______.
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Edison was a busy man, but he always found the time to spend with his kids, they ______ ________ and ______ _______ at dawn.
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When Edison was dying, the newspapermen wanted to get news and ______ ______ over the events.
Discussion
5. Read the text again and find out what circumstances might have prevented Edison from becoming a great scientist and inventor.
6. Edison often said, « There is always some value in every trouble.»
Work in pairs think of the meaning of Edison’s words and say what, according to Edison, the value of these troubles was. Share your own point of view.
1. From childhood, this man was almost completely deaf.
2. He had a lot of disappointing experiments.
3. His laboratory was completely ruined by the fire when he was 67.
7. Skim through the abstracts from the text and make predictions about Edison’s traits of character which led him inevitably to success in spite of plentiful obstacles.
Discussing Edison’s Personality
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Edison always led us to experiment and explore for ourselves. He provided all sorts of material and got us to work with them laughing, joking, questioning.
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Thomas Alva Edison never looked like a man whose inventions had changed the world.
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He never acted like one either.
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He was not, as many people believe, a scientist working alone in a laboratory.
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After he sold his first successful inventions for $ 40,000, he began hiring chemists, mathematicians, engineers – anyone who knew things that he thought would help him solve a difficult problem.
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He put nearly all his money into his experiments. Several times he was almost completely without money, but that didn’t stop him.
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Once, when a visitor asked whether he had received many honours and medals, he replied, «Oh, yes, Mom has baskets of them up at the house.»
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« If you sleep too much, you get dopey. You lose time and opportunities , too.»
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«We haven’t failed,» he told an unhappy worker during one set of disappointing experiments.
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«We now know 100 things that won’t work. So we are much closer to finding one that will.»
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He was often called « The Wizard of Menlo Park.»
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It has been said that Edison had no schooling.
8. Edison’s words of wisdom. Read these sentences. What do they mean?
«Education isn’t play and it can’t be made to look like play. It’s hard work but it can be made interesting work.»
«If you do not learn to think when you are young, you may never learn.»
« Achievement provides the only real pleasure in life.»
« Genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.»
9. Draw a conclusion:
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what made Edison world famous and worthy of respect ;
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what features essential to a scientist he possessed;
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what lesson a young scientist can learn from Edison’s life.
10. What modern inventions would be admired by Edison? Give reasons for the choice.
Project Work
11. Work in groups of four. Suppose you are to write a film script about Edison’s life.
Say which facts you would choose for a documentary film and which episodes from Edison’s life you would select for a feature film. Say what evidence you can find in the story that:
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Edison was a true scientist;
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Edison was a great inventor;
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Edison was a great personality.
UNIT 10 RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS: STUDY OF SPACE
Focus: Space Station Mir. The Hubble Telescope.
Grammar Focus: Conditional Sentences
Skills Focus: Reading for specific information about Russian and American scientific achievements in space exploration; making presentation; describing tools.
TEXT A
Vocabulary
to launch – запускать
artificial satellite – искусственный спутник
manned flight – пилотируемый человеком
permanent space station – космическая станция многоразового пользования
crew – экипаж
unmanned cargo vehicle – беспилотный/управляемый автоматически грузовой корабль
to decommission – списывать, переводить в резерв
1. Everyone knows that the Soviet scientists have made the greatest contribution to space exploration. Work in pairs; complete the chart with achievements and dates connected with the universe investigation. Compare your notes with other students.
| Date | Achievements |
| 1963 | Valentina Tereshkova was launched in the spacecraft Vostok 6, which completed 48 orbits in 71 hours. |
2. Read the text, check your suppositions; correct the dates if they are wrong, add more events to the chart.
Space Station Mir
On the 4th October 1957, the USSR launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. In response the USA founded NASA, the US space agency, and the Space Race began.
The USSR led race for the next few decades. In April 1961 the first manned flight was made by the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in the spacecraft Vostok 1. The less than a month later NASA sent the American astronaut Alan Shepherd into space. On the 19th of April 1971 the Soviet space station Salyut 1 was put into orbit, followed two years later by the Americans’ launch of Skylab. At about the same time NASA was beginning to focus on the development of a partially reusable space craft, the Space Shuttle. Meanwhile the USSR followed up the success of Salyut with the larger, more permanent space station Mir.
Mir was launched in1986 and continued in service for fifteen years. It was designed to give astronauts the opportunity to remain in space for a long time and enable them to work in a well-equipped scientific laboratory. It succeeded in this, proving to be the most successful of all the space projects initiated by the USSR, equaling the American’s major achievement – the Apollo moon projects. Out of the 5,511 days that Mir was in orbit around the earth, 28 crews occupied the space station for a total of 4,459 days. Some astronauts stayed on board Mir for more than a year at a time. The cosmonauts were resupplied through regular visit from Soyuz space capsules, which brought new components or replacement crew. Routine supply missions were made by unmanned Progress cargo vehicles.
Since Perestroika, the emphasis in space exploration has been one of co-operation rather than competition. Mir truly lived up to its name of ‘Peace’ and was visited and crewed not only by Soviet, and later, Russian cosmonauts, but by cosmonauts from other countries such as Syria, France, Germany. Even the Space Shuttle brought an American crew who worked alongside their Russian counterparts for several weeks. Mir was finally decommissioned in 2001, having served far longer than had been originally planned. Yet the work of the cosmonauts, designers and engineers continues in the new great symbol of scientific space co-operation – the international space Station. Indeed, Mir was such a triumph that without the knowledge gained from its long flight around the earth, it is doubtful whether a permanent station in space would be possible today.
3. Read the text again and choose the best title for each paragraph.
Paragraph 1 Paragraph 3
A Founding NASA A Supplying Mir
B Sputnik B Years in space
C The race begins C Twenty-eight crews
D Visitors D Visitors
Paragraph 2 Paragraph 4
A Manned flights A International Space Station
B Leading the race B Co-operation
C Developments in space C Mir justifies its name ‘Peace’
D Further exploration D The next generation
4. Match the words with the corresponding definitions
1. response a. great success
2. focus b. take out of service
3. initiate c. reply or reaction
4. decommission d. a thing one concentrates on
5. triumph e. begin
Speaking
5. Discuss the answers to these questions with the partner.
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Is space travel useful to mankind? Why/ why not?
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Could the money be better used for other things? What things?
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Is there life on other planets?
6. Give a short presentation on advantages and disadvantages of space exploration for the world. Talk about:
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New discoveries
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New technologies
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The costs
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The danger
Use the notes to help you.
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discoveries – know more about planets, understand stars
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technology – new materials (metals, fabrics), new research (medicines, fuels)
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costs – expensive; spend money on hospitals , schools, developments
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danger – take off and landing (fire, human error), cosmonauts or robots?
Remember to:
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give contrasting points of view
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use conditional sentences ( if present tense + will; if past tense + would) e.g. If we develop new inflammable materials, we’ll make great progress in space exploration
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use modals of possibility (may, could)
TEXT B
Vocabulary
online – 1. работающий под управлением основного оборудования, работающий в режиме онлайн 2. Работающий в оперативном режиме
(в темпе поступления информации в реальном времени)
to site – помещать, размещать, располагать
distortion – искажение, искривление
to twinkle – мерцать, мигать
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