- •The precious envelope
- •1. Warning up.
- •2. Listen to or look through the following text and say what answers you've just discussed are not in it.
- •3. Look through the text again and find all the definitions connected with air.
- •4. A) Look through the text once more and change the given questions to the order of events they occur in the text:
- •5. Listen to or read the given extracts of critical reviews of the book "Air" and decide if they are positive (p) or negative (n):
- •6. Read the text thoroughly with a dictionary and answer the following questions. Use your knowledge of chemistry as well.
- •7. Using a dictionary, find in the text English equivalents to the following Russian words, word combinations and chemical terms:
- •8. Match the words, word combinations and chemical terms in a with their synonyms in b:
- •9. Complete the following sentences using the words from the list below. Some of the words can be used more than once:
- •10. Complete the other sentences, this time using chemical terms from the list below. Some of them can't be used in the given sentences, while the others can be used a few times:
- •11. A) Find in ex. 2 and ex. 5 all the sentences containing infinitive, participle (I and II) and gerund. Translate these sentences into Russian.
- •12. Listen to the following dialogue and say what problems the participants are discussing. The notes and words will help you to understand the text better: notes
- •17. A) Read the text again and state which of the following statements are true (t), false (f) or not mentioned (nm) in the text:
- •18. Read the text again, divide it into logical parts and entitle them thus making a plan. Write out the sentences expressing the main idea(s) of the text.
- •19. Write a summary of the text using your plan and the sentences you've written out.
3. Look through the text again and find all the definitions connected with air.
4. A) Look through the text once more and change the given questions to the order of events they occur in the text:
1. What is air?
2. What other gases are there in the air?
3. What is atmosphere?
4. What experiments with air can one make?
5. How deep is the "ocean of air"?
b) Answer these questions in your own words.
5. Listen to or read the given extracts of critical reviews of the book "Air" and decide if they are positive (p) or negative (n):
1. After reading and rereading Dr. Steward's new book on "Air", I simply can't understand why some of the reviewers have found something wrong with the conclusions which this famous writer makes.
2. Since the time Dr. Steward began writing his book, new information has been obtained which clearly shows how questionable the conclusions that he makes are.
3. Dr. Steward always writes his books in a very understandable manner, but even his clear style cannot hide the lack of understanding of what he describes.
4. It will be a great pity if Dr. Steward's new book on "Air" is read only by specialists in the field of inorganic chemistry because a writer of such high qualification surely deserves a much greater audience of readers.
5. Although Dr. Steward's new book on "Air" doesn't contain many pages, I find it impossible to imagine how a better description of the subject could ever be produced.
6. On page after page of Dr. Steward's new book on "Air" I found statements which my own experience in this field certainly leads me to ask a number of questions.
7. One cannot help expressing pity that more writers in this field have Dr. Steward's talent of clear expression combined with convincing proof of his conclusions.
8. There is certainly a great need in this field for a short, general review which combined scientific theory with good literary style, but, though Dr. Steward's literary style is worth speaking about, the theory which he tries to develop leaves one unsatisfied.
9. In my previous books in this difficult field, I expressed the opinion that no satisfactory treatment of the subject had ever been published; and after reading Dr. Steward's latest attempt in the same area, I'm ready to report that the situation remains unchanged.
10. In his latest book Dr. Steward has tried to present the beginning student with a popular introduction to the subject, and, although I am certainly in full sympathy with his purpose, I must honestly report here that in so many popular treatments in the field of science, the effort to give a simple yet true picture of a difficult subject has proved to be far beyond the capacity of the writer.
6. Read the text thoroughly with a dictionary and answer the following questions. Use your knowledge of chemistry as well.
1. Why can't you know that there's air around us?
2. Why is it impossible to say how deep the atmosphere is?
3. Why isn't it possible to stop gases mixing together?
4. What was the atmosphere made up at first?
5. What are the main gases m the atmosphere nowadays?
6. What experiments can be made in the laboratory to find out about the air?
7. What can you say about carbon dioxide and its importance?
8. What will you do to show that there is water vapour in the air?
9. Why is it difficult to make experiments for removing nitrogen from the air?
10. What do you know about argon?