Crocodiles: scary but lovely to watch
For centuries, people lived with and respected the all-power (1) crocodile. Those snap (2) jaws and lethal teeth frightened all the attack (3) away, whether human or animal. People were also fascinated by their character (4) calls, their beauty and their intellect (5). Fortune (6), it was their beautiful skin which put them under threaten (7). When explore (8) realized how valuable crocodile skin was, everything changed. Hunters risked their lives – and sometimes lost them − in order to satisfaction (9) the world’s demand for crocodile skin.
Bad (10) was to come. The crocodiles’ homes began to disappear as new towns and industrial (11) were developed on the land near swamps and rivers. Luckily for the crocodiles, people realized that a world without them would just not be the same, and now they have been office (12) declared endangered species. In some parts of the world, there are now parks where crocodiles may live safety (13), with laws to protect them.
“It is law (14) to kill crocodiles,” says the conserve (15) Charles Swaby, who has spent the last thirty years protect (16) the Jamaican crocodiles. The problem is that when farm animals are killed by crocodiles, farmers
ignorant (17) the law and kill them. That is what Charles is fighting against. “Crocodiles are much more scare (18) of us than we are of them. They are scary but lovely to watch,” he adds. If Charles, and others like him, can convince the world to share this opinion, crocodiles will be with us forever.
9.Образуйте соответствующее однокоренное слово.
EXTINCT SPECIES
I. An norm (1) egg, with circumference of 81.78 cm, was found on a western Australian beach in 1993 by three children who initially take (2) it for a very large smooth rock. What makes the egg even more ordinary (3) is that the bird that laid it – a monster (4) large flightless bird called Aepyonis Maximus or ‘elephant bird’ – became extinct about 400 years ago and lived on the island of Madagascar, at little (5) 6,500 kilometers from the Australian coastline. Scientists believe the egg must have been transported from Madagascar on the prevail (6)ocean currents to the converge (7)point of the Indian and Southern Oceans where the egg was actually found.
II. About 40 million years ago, a fierce hunter, called the saber-tooth(8)cat, lived on the earth. Its remains have been found on the grass (9) plains of North and South America. These history (10) cats, which looked more like lions, were distance (11) cousins of modern tigers.
III. The dodowas a large, flight (12) bird with short legs, a huge beak, stubby wings and a small feather (13) tail. It lived peace (14) on the island of Mauritius for so long that it lost its able (15) to fly. Within 100 years of the arrive (16) of humans, the dodo had become a rare bird. The last one was killed in the 1680s.
IV. Though declaration (17) a protected species, the Tasmanian tiger became extinct – the last know (18) Tasmanian tiger died in capture (19) in the Hobart Zoo in 1936.
V. The Moa was a long-necked flightless bird, which wasnation (20) to New Zealand and which looked something like an ostrich, only several times bigger. In the Maori language this word is used also to description (21) any bird of similar appearance. The Moa was last reported to be seen more than a century ago.
VI. The Quagga was an animal resemble (22) a zebra that used to live in southern Africa. It is now extinct, but the last one died in the zoo as late as a century ago. This usual (23)word comes from Afrikaans, which in its turn borrowed it from Hottentot.
10. Заполните пропуски подходящими по смыслу словами из предложенного списка.
DINOSAURS
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Dinosaurs were a group of huge vertebrates, of lizard type, whose(1) ___ characteristic was that they had very small brain. Iguanadon was a (2) ___dinosaur about 9 meters long, lizard-like, with a large mouth and sharp teeth for eating plants. He has a sort of descendant in the (3) ___iguana. Archaeopteryx, which appeared during the Jurassic (4) ___, was the first animal that could fly. It had a lizard-like tail and sharp teeth, as well as a huge wing span. Another flyinganimal – pterodactyl seems strange to be described as a bird because this (5) ___ creature was so enormous. They looked a bit like huge bats with a bird-like head and (6) ___ quarters like those of a lizard. The wingspan could be anything up to 7 meters. Ichteosaurs were a group of reptiles who lived in the sea in the Mesozoic (7) ___, and they could (8) ___ from 1 to 10 meters in length, with flippers and a long, (9) ___ tail. Psittacosaurs were a large lizards with parrot-like (10) ___, who lived on land.
11. Образуйте соответствующее однокоренное слово.
STEGOSAURUS
Stegosaurus was a type of dinosaur which appeared about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period. It could grow up to 9 m in long (1) and about 3 m in high (2), and it weight (3) 3000 kg. It was not a very intellect (4) animal; its small brain was the size of a walnut! Its scull was long and narrow, and it had a tooth (5) beak and small teeth farther back. Long, triangle (6) plates sticking out of the Stegosaurus’ back and tail may have been for protect (7) from predators.
Towards the end of the Jurassic period, most of the enormous dinosaurs death (8) out. One theory suggests that dinosaurs began to decrease in number because of the major changes in the globe (9) weather and the environment. Stegosaurs, being able (10) to cope with the changes, slowly began to die out.
12.Выберите подходящее слово из предложенных двух вариантов.
MAMMOTH
The mammoth and the sable-tooth tiger were the two principle/principal (1)animals which the early man knew, but which have been extinct/instinct (2) for thousands of years. The shell/carcass (3)of the mammoth was discovered in a riverbed in Siberia. The fully intact/contact (4)body of a baby mammoth having not only bones but also flesh, skin andwool/wooly (5) hide, which was perfectly preserved/reserved (6)in permafrost, was found in Jakutia. The mammoth, nicknamed “Dima”, is now one of the most famous exhibits/exhibitions (7) of the Zoological Museum in St. Petersburg.
Mammoths used to be found throughout the Northern semicircle/hemisphere (8) and especially in the northern Eurasia. The word is borrowed from the obsolete/absolute (9) Russian, in fact, it had originally come from Tartar Mamont, which means ‘earth’, because mammoths were believed to have burrowed/buried (10).
In the English language the word ‘mammoth’ is also used to ascribe/describe (11) something huge, as this elephant-like mammal was considerably larger, had curvedtusks/tasks (12) and looked more ferocious/ferrous (13) than his modern relative – the elephant. Another animal described/depicted (14) on the walls of the cave dwellings/swellings (15) of the prehistoric man is the sable-tooth tiger who had hugecanine teeth and lived in the Americas.
13.Выберите подходящее слово из предложенных двух вариантов.