Week 1 (cont): Vocabulary

Here’s the other website for my vocabulary skill:   

www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish

Here's my scores:

Space shuttle's final mission: 3/5

First child of an infant nation: 4/5

Hong Kong's hive of business: 4/5

Space shuttle's final mission

The US space shuttle Atlantis will blast off for the last time on Friday 8 July ending NASA's 30-year programme.
Four crew members will be dropping off a year's worth of supplies at the International Space Station. They'll be in orbit for 12-days and travel 6.5 million kilometres during the sortie.
In total, 355 astronauts will have flown on the shuttle since the inaugural mission in 1981.
_______________________________________
blast off: launch, take off like a rocket
dropping off: delivering
in orbit: in a position in space, travelling around the earth
sortie: mission
inaugural: the first in a series of important events or activities

Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from a BBC news report.

Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

blast off / dropping off / in orbit / sortie / inaugural

1.

Their work will ensure the good "housekeeping" of the satellites, including the maintenance and correct positioning of the spacecraft __________ .

2.

Speaking at an event in Dakar, Senegal, Luc Gnacadja - a UN desertification expert - said the ___________ Africa Drylands Week had ended with a very simple, yet stark, message.

3.

Mr Tito ___________ on 28 April 2001, but only after a struggle to get anyone to take him - the US space agency Nasa refused on the grounds that he was not a trained astronaut, so it was the Russians who facilitated the trip.

4.

A recycling barn will also be set up for festival goers to _______ cans, bottles and packaging.

5.

Nato says it has carried out over six thousand __________ over Libya since the bombing campaign began nearly two months ago.

First child of an infant nation

First the birth of a nation and then the arrival of its first citizen. The weekend saw South Sudan usher in independence after decades of civil war. As revellers were marking the newborn country's secession from the north, Josephine Alphanes gave birth to her son, who she named Independence. Nurses and midwives joined in the celebrations.

usher in

begin something new, welcome a new situation

revellers

people celebrating and having fun in a noisy way

secession

the political separation and independence of one part of a country

gave birth to

had a baby, was the creator of

midwives

medical staff who help women through the process of childbirth

Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from a BBC news report. Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

usher in / revellers / secession / gave birth to / midwives

1.

Beyonce and Coldplay are among the acts taking to the stage at day two of Scotland's largest music festival. Organisers expect about 85,000 ______________ a day at T in the Park at Balado, near Kinross.

2.

The Democratic League of Kosovo and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo boycotted February's vote. They cited Mr Pacolli's history of ties to Russia, which opposed Kosovo's 2008 ______________ from Serbia.

3.

A hospital maternity unit in County Durham is to temporarily shut because of a shortage of ______________.

4.

It may take protesters and reformers years to achieve their aims, and even when free and fair elections do take place, there is no guarantee they will automatically _____________ better government.

5.

Kate Hudson has _________________ a boy with fiancé and Muse frontman Matt Bellamy.

Hong Kong's hive of business

It may be a concrete jungle but Hong Kong has more similarities with the great outdoors than you might think. 14 storeys up a skyscraper, you can find one of the 11 urban beehives around the city. Like many conurbations, Hong Kong has enough flora for bees to pollinate and harvest nectar from. Following Chinese tradition beekeepers in Hong Kong don't wear any protective gear.

concrete jungle

a phrase to describe a city with many large buildings and skyscrapers and few green areas

storeys

different levels of a building

beehives

structures where bees live together

conurbations

large urban areas where different towns have grown and joined together

to pollinate

to enable plants to produce seeds and therefore reproduce. Pollination happens when bees, other insects or the wind carry pollen from one plant to another.

Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from a BBC news report. Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

concrete jungle / storeys / beehives / conurbations / to pollinate

1.
The biggest city close to the epicentre is Concepcion, which forms part of the second largest ______________________ in the country with a population of about one million.

2.
The Magnolia genus is an ancient group of more than 100 plants, and is considered to be among the first flowering plants to have evolved.
Their arrival on the planet pre-dated the emergence of bees, so the early species of magnolia were believed to have been __________________ by beetles.

3.
A toddler who fell 10 ________________ and survived after being caught by a passer-by has been making headlines around the world. But what is the best way to catch a falling child?

4.
In popular culture, New York is the city that never sleeps, the ____________________ in which dreams are made, a place to walk on the wild side.

5.
A Toronto museum is investigating the sudden death of thousands of bees in a glass-enclosed ___________________ exhibit.