The use of articles with geographical names
| Zero Article | Indefinite Article | Definite Article | ||
| 1 | Continents | 1. general use · Europe; Asia; Antarctica 2. modified by some descriptive attributes in pre-position : northern, southern, eastern, western, central, minor, south-west (etc), Latin, ancient, old, new, industrial, medieval, modern · North America · Central Asia | - | limitation clear from the context, e.g. It was the Europe of 1600s. |
| 2 | Countries | 1. with names that consist of one word Ukraine; England; Poland 2. modified by some descriptive attributes in pre-position (see above), · Ancient Rome · modern London | indicates some unusual qualities or mood in the given situation It was a new Italy Marko did not recognize. | is used if the names consist of more than one word · the United States of America · the United Emirates · the United Kingdom indicates traditional use · the Argentine (but Argentina) · the Netherlands · (the) Lebanon; (the) Congo; (the) Senegal; (the) Kameroon; (the) Sudan |
| 3 | Regions and provinces | Kharkiv Region, | - | indicates traditional use · the Lake District · the Caucasus; the Crimea · the Ruhr; the Tyrol; the Riviera; the Transvaal; the Saar |
| 4 | Cities, towns, villages | traditional use · London (city) · Broadstairs (town) · Middlemead (village) | to show some unusual qualities or mood in the given situation It was a different Paris unknown to him. | 1. clear from the situation, usually with a limiting attribute, e.g. It was not the France of his youth. 2. with an ‘of-phrase’, e.g. the city of Chester; the village of Amberley 3. an exception - the Hague |
| 5 | Mountains,mountain passes and islands | separate mountains, peaks and islands · Snowdon · Mount Everest · Cyprus | - | mountain chains and groups pf islands · the Rocky Mountains · the Bahamas · the Saint Gotthard Pass · the Isle of Man (of-phrase) |
| 6 | Lakes | with the word ‘lake’ Lake Michigan; Silver Lake | - | without the word ‘lake’ the Michigan, the Windermere |
| 7 | Oceans, seas, rivers, straights, channels, canals, waterfalls, bays, gulfs | - | - | · the Indian Ocean · the North Sea · the Trent (a river in England) · the Magellan Straits (the Strait of Magellan) · the English Channel · the Panama Canal · the Niagara Falls · North Bay (but the San Francisco Bay) · the Gulf of Mexico |
| 8 | Peninsulas and capes | without the word ‘peninsula’ · Hindustan · Labrador · Cape Horn · Cape Province | with the word ‘peninsula’ · the Hindustan Peninsula · the Labrador Peninsula with ‘of – phrase’ (traditional use) · the Cape of Good Hope | |
| 9 | Deserts | - | - | the Sahara Desert |
| 10 | Names traditionally used in the plural | - | - | · the Midlands · the Netherlands · the Yorkshire Forests |
| 11 | Streets, squares, parks | · Baker Street · Drury Lane · Brown Close · Sunset Boulevard · Piccadilly Circus · Hyde Park | traditional use · the Strand (in London) · the High Street · The Main Street · the Mall · the Plaza San Marco (in foreign names) |
The use of articles with other proper names
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| Zero Article | Definite Article | ||
| 1 | Buildings, bridges | · Waterloo Bridge · Westminster Abbey | traditional use · the Tower (of London) · the White House · the Old Bailey (the Crown Court in the UK) |
| 2 | Airports, railway and bus stations, | · Heathrow Airport · Victoria Station | - |
| 3 | Hotels, clubs, restaurants, cafes, pubs | - | · the Hilton; the Green Hotel · the National Tennis Club · the Restaurant Bretagne · the Café de la Paix · the Headless Woman |
| 4 | Museums, picture galleries, monuments | - | · the National Gallery · the British Museum · the Washington Monument |
| 5 | Concert halls, theatres, cinemas | Carnegie Hall (traditional name) | · the Royal Albert Hall · the Old Vic Theatre · the Odeon Cinema · the Kharkiv Shevchenko Ukrainian Drama Theatre |
| 6 | Ships and boats | - | · The Titanic · The Seagull |
| 7 | Newspapers | - | · The Daily Mirror · The Financial Times |
| 8 | Magazines | · Vogue · Teen Vogue | - |
| 8 | Names of historical events | - | · the Paris Commune · the Russian Revolution · the Industrial Revolution · the Napoleonic Wars · the gold rush |
| 9 | Parties and organizations | - | · the Conservative Party · The League of nations · the NATO · the European Union |
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EXERCISES
Exercise 1. Match the words with their definitions.
Part 1
| 1 | a continent | a | a watershed |
| 2 | tropics | b | the place where a river enters a sea |
| 3 | a jungle | c | a large piece of land surrounded on three sides by water: |
| 4 | a desert | d | a long narrow hill-top |
| 5 | a pole | e | a river mouth widening into the sea, where fresh water mixes with salt water |
| 6 | the Equator | f | a river flowing into a larger river or lake |
| 7 | an estuary | g | either of the ends of the Earth’s axis of rotation |
| 8 | a river mouth | h | the region between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, with a hot climate |
| 9 | a tributary | i | a river falling down a steep height |
| 10 | a waterfall | j | an imaginary line round the Earth, equidistant from the poles |
| 11 | a divide | k | any of the main continuous bodies of land |
| 12 | a cape | l | land overgrown with tangled vegetation, especially in the tropics |
| 13 | a ridge | m | an area without sufficient rainfall and, consequently, vegetation to support human life; |
Part 2
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| 1 | a galaxy | a | a body of ice originating in mountains in snowfields moving slowly |
| 2 | a constellation | b | the regular rise and fall of the sea due to the attraction of the Moon and Sun |
| 3 | the Milky Way | c | a flat-topped steep-sided plateau |
| 4 | a cliff | d | a deep, narrow valley running through mountains |
| 5 | a gorge | e | a long, jagged mountain chain, especially in Spain or Spanish America |
| 6 | a canyon | f | a tongue of land surrounded on three sides by water but still attached to a larger landmass |
| 7 | a glacier | g | a congregation of millions or billions of stars, held together by gravity |
| 8 | a plateau | h | a narrow passage of water connecting two large bodies of water |
| 9 | a strait | i | an area of fairly level high ground |
| 10 | the tide | j | a group of stars forming a recognizable pattern in the sky; |
| 11 | a sierra | k | a steep rock face, especially on the coast |
| 12 | a mesa | l | the faint band of light crossing the night sky, consisting of stars in the plane of our Galaxy |
| 13 | a peninsula | m | a narrow opening between hills |
Exercise 1.2. Translate the unknown words from Exercise 1 into Ukrainian or Russian.
Exercise 1.3. Define the active words from Exercise 1 without looking at the given definitions.
Exercise 2. Complete these sentences as in the example: The Nile is a river.
1. The Atlantic is ________________________________.
2. The Alps are ______________________________.
3. Greece is _________________.
4. The Sahara is __________________.
5. The Amazon is ___________________.
6. The Mediterranean is _______________.
7. The Bahamas is ___________________.
8. Crete and Corsica are __________________.
9. Everest is the highest ___________________ in the world.
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10. Michigan and Erie ['IqrI] (озеро Эри) are two of the Great __________.
11. The ‘Great Bear’ is ___________________________.
Note: 10 constellations most often referred to:
- Andromeda [æn'drɔmɪdə]
- Orion [ə'raɪən]
- Sagittarius / The Archer [ˌsæʤɪ'tɛərɪəs]
- Cassiopeia ["kxsI'qVpIq]
- Cancer
- Taurus ['tɔːrəs]
- Aquarius [ə'kwɛərɪəs]
- Gemini ['ʤemɪnaɪ]
- Scorpio ['skO:pIqV]
- Leo
Exercise 3. There follows a selection of words describing a range of geographical features. Read each set of notes and see if you can guess which country is being described. For those who can’t guess, the answers are given below, but be careful, they are not in the right order.
1. a peninsula bounded by a large mountain range in the North – a wide plateau extending to the ocean in the South – unpredictable monsoon climate – population concentrated in the northern plains;
2. enormous forest areas in the interior – coastal mountains in the West – numerous islands off the north coast – lowlands in the North – continental climate, severe inland, more moderate by the sea – total area: 3, 851, 809 square miles;
3. a wide variety of land and climate – a huge river basin in the North – thickly forested – a vast plateau in the South – densely populated in coastal belt to the East – relatively underdeveloped in central areas beyond the highlands in the South-East – lies on the Equator;
4. consists of four main islands – mountainous and hilly – many active volcanoes – subject to earthquakes, typhoons and tidal waves – extends through many degrees of latitude – the climate, therefore, is very diverse;
5. located round the mouth of the Rhine and opposite the Thames estuary – a long coastline – most of the country flat and low-lying – large areas in the West and North below sea level – subject to floods – complex network of canals;
6. mountainous with numerous lakes – varied climate according to altitude, ranging from tropical to temperate to cold – highest point over 18,000 feet – desert in the West – half of the country lies inside the Tropic of Cancer;
7. to the North the southern slopes of a gigantic mountain chain – tropical forests and jungle – highest peak 8,845 metres – fertile valleys for agriculture in central zone;
8. most highly developed country in its continent – rich in mineral deposits and other natural resources – large industrialised urban areas round coasts – rural in the interior – rich vegetation, good irrigation;
Answers: South Africa , India, Canada, Nepal, Brazil, Mexico, Holland, Japan.
Exercise 4. Give two nouns which collocate with the adjectives below. Try not to repeat any of the nouns you choose.
1. sandy
2. steep
3. shallow
4. rocky
5. turbulent
6. dangerous
Exercise 5. Complete the paragraph below about Ukraine.
1. ________________________ is a _______________________ in __________________.
2. The countryside is _____________________ in the north and ______________________ in the south.
3. The country’s economy is based on _________________________.
4. The longest river is ____________________.
5. The most famous chain of mountains is ______________________________________.
6. The highest peak is __________________________.
7. _________________________ is a major environmental problem in Ukraine today.
Exercise 6. Do the general knowledge quiz below. In case of doubt, find out the information you need in the Internet.
1. How many continents are there in the world? What are they?
2. How many oceans are there in the world? What are they?
3. What is the highest mountain in the world?
4. What is Kilimanjaro famous for?
5. What is the longest river in the world?
6. What is the longest river in Europe?
7. What is the longest river in Ukraine?
8. Where is the highest waterfall in the world?
9. Name some countries which have geysers and hot springs.
10. What is delta and which great river has one?
11. Where are the Straits of Gibraltar?
12. Where is the Cape of Good Hope?
13. What is the southernmost point of South America?
14. What is the capital of the USA?
15. What oceans does the Panama Canal join?
16. Which river flows through London?
17. What desert occupies much of northern Africa?
18. Which country has the largest population in the world?
19. What joins the Red Sea and the Mediterranean?
20. Which is the largest continent?
21. What separates Spain and Morocco?
22. In which mountain range is Everest?
Exercise 7. Decide whether statements below are true or false. Correct the false ones. In case of doubt, find out the information you need in the Internet.
1. Our galaxy is called the Milky Bar.
2. Our solar system has nine principal planets.
3. Earth is thought to have the highest density of all the planets.
4. A constellation is another word for star.
5. A meteor is sometimes known as a shooting star.
6. Meteorites can be bigger than meteors.
7. Asteroids are orbiting rocks found between Mars and Jupiter.
8. An astrologer would know more about the surface of Venus than an astronomer.
9. Halley’s Comet was expected to appear in the 1990’s.
10. UFO stands for unidentified flying object.
11. Pluto was first discovered during the twentieth century.
12. Saturn is further from the Sun than Uranus.
13. Mercury is the hottest planet.
14. Neptune is the nearest planet to the Sun
15. A light year is nearly six million miles.
Exercise 8. Fill in the gaps in the sentences below with the necessary articles.
1. People have always wanted to be able to fly like birds in ___________ sky.
2. Every solar system has __________ sun.
3. _________ Equator runs round the middle of ________ earth.
4. When _________ moon passes between __________ sun and _________ earth, it is called an eclipse.
5. That night there was ________ amazing sky, full of different colours.
6. It’s the oldest university in _________ world.
7. We don’t know how old _________ universe is.
8. Gorillas can only be found deep inside ________ jungle.
9. Camels have been called ‘ships of __________ desert’.
10. I prefer living in ________ country; it’s quieter than ________ town.
11. When we were kids we loved the beach so we used to spend all our holidays at ________ seaside, but now we prefer _________ mountains, especially _____ Alps.
Exercise 9. In the paragraph below, all the definite articles have been omitted. Insert them wherever necessary.
Brazil is fifth largest country in world. In north densely forested basin of River Amazon covers half country. In east country is washed by Atlantic. Highest mountain chain in South America, Andes, does not lie in Brazil. Brazil’s most famous city is Rio de Janeiro, former capital. Capital of Brazil today is Brasilia.
Exercise 10. Fill in the gaps in the text with the definite articles wherever necessary.
My journey took me across ___________ Atlantic Ocean from _______ Europe to ___________ South America. I travelled through ____________ Amazon rainforest and down through the interior of ___________ Brazil as far as ________ Iguacu Falls. From there I headed north again, through ______ Bolivia, round _____ Lake Titikaka and up to Cuzco. Then I crossed __________ Andes and finally arrived in Lima. For the last part of the journey I flew to __________ Jamaica in ______ West Indies.
KEY
My journey took me across the Atlantic Ocean from _______ Europe to ___________ South America. I travelled through the Amazon rainforest and down through the interior of ___________ Brazil as far as the/- Iguacu Falls. From there I headed north again, through ______ Bolivia, round _____ Lake Titikaka and up to Cuzco. Then I crossed the Andes and finally arrived in Lima. For the last part of the journey I flew to __________ Jamaica in the West Indies.
Exercise 11. Creative writing.
Imagine that you are a pilot who has just made a solo flight around the world. Write a two page article to a youth magazine about what you have seen from the sky. Follow the recommendations below on how to write magazine articles.
Recommendations
- Title: Articles usually have a title. The title should be informative (give the reader an idea of the subject) and attractive (make the reader want to read the article).
- Opening: The start of the article should be linked to the title, introduce the topic and engage the reader. Often, an article starts with a question which introduces the topic which will be discussed in the article.
- Paragraphs: Should be clearly defined, not too long and clearly linked.
- Ending: Should conclude the article.
- Register or Style: Could be light or serious (but should be consistent), depending on who the target reader is. May use some rhetorical questions e.g. Can you imagine our Earth from the bird's-eye perspective?
- Range of language: Probably, some use of descriptive language and language of opinion. Always give some examples.
Exercise 12. Read the text below and do the tasks that follow it.
THE UNITED KINGDOM
The British Isles form a group lying off the north-west coast of Europe. The largest islands are Great Britain proper (comprising the mainlands of England, Wales and Scotland) and Ireland (comprising Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic). Great Britain together with Northern Ireland constitutes the United Kingdom. Thus, the United Kingdom is composed of four countries. The largest of these is England which is divided into 45 administrative counties. The capital city is London which is situated in south-east England.
The United Kingdom has a total area of about 244, 100 square kilometres. About 70 % is devoted to agriculture, about 7 % is wasteland, moorland and mountains, about 13 % is devoted to urban development, and 10 % is forest and woodland. The seas surrounding the British Isles are very shallow because the islands lie on the continental shelf.
Despite their small area, the British Isles contain rocks of all the main geological periods. In Great Britain the newer rocks, which are less resistant to weather, and have thus been worn down to form low land, lie to the south and east, and the island can therefore be divided roughly into two main regions, Lowland Britain and Highland Britain.
In Lowland Britain the newer and softer rocks of southern and eastern England have been eroded into a rich plain, more often rolling than flat and rising to chalk and limestone hills, but hardly ever reaching a thousand feet above sea level. The boundaries of this region run roughly from the mouth of the Tyne in the north-east of England to the mouth of the Exe in the south-west.
Highland Britain comprises the whole of Scotland as well as the mountains of the Scottish Highlands, the Lake District in north-west England, the broad central upland known as the Pennines, almost the whole of Wales, and the south-western peninsula of England coinciding approximately with the counties of Devon and Cornwall. Highland Britain contains all the mountainous parts of Great Britain and extensive uplands lying above one thousand feet. This high ground, however, is not continuous but is interspersed with valleys and plains.
Britain’s complex geology is one of the main reasons for its rich variety of scenery found within short distances, particularly on the coast. The ancient rocks of Highland Britain often reach the coast in towering cliffs; elsewhere the sea may penetrate in deep lochs, as along much of the west coast of Scotland. Even around Lowland Britain there are striking contrasts. In some parts the soft, white limestone – the chalk – forms the world-famous white cliffs of Dover or the Needles off the Isle of Wight; while other parts of the south and south-east coastline have beaches of sand and shingle. The eastern coast of England, between the Humber and the Thames estuary, is for the most part low-lying, and for hundreds of years, some stretches of it have been protected against the sea by embankments. These have occasionally been breached, as in the flood disaster of January 1953, which was caused by violent gales and exceptionally high tides.
The marked tidal movement around the British Isles sweeps away much of the sand and mud brought down by the rivers and makes the estuaries of the short British rivers valuable as natural harbours.
Task 1. Complete the following passage by using appropriate verb forms in the spaces. Sometimes a preposition is needed as well.
1. Great Britain is an island that ______________ the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea.
2. It ______________ the mainlands of England, Wales and Scotland.
3. Ireland ______________ the west coast of Great Britain.
4. It ______________ Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
5. The United Kingdom ______________ of Britain together with Northern Ireland.
6. The capital city is London which ______________ south-east England.
7. In 1999, the population of the United Kingdom ______________ 59 million.
8. The density of population ______________ 233 people per square km.
9. In the United Kingdom, English is the language which _____ predominantly ______________.
Task 2. Complete the sentences.
1. The British Isles lie off the ______________ coast of Europe.
2. The largest of the British Isles are ______________ and ________________.
3. The United Kingdom is constituted by ______________ and ______________.
4. England is divided into 45 administrative ______________.
5. Great Britain can be divided into two main regions: ______________ and ______________.
6. Britain’s ______________ ______________ is one of the main reasons for its rich variety of scenery.
7. In some parts of Lowland Britain, the soft white limestone forms the world-famous white ______________.
Task 3. Look at the map of Scotland. Fill in the spaces in the text below with proper nouns according to the map.
1. Scotland occupies the northern part of Great Britain.
2. It is separated from Northern Ireland by _________________ while _________________ form the border with England.
3. It lies between two large bodies of water: _________________ to the west and _________________ to the east.
4. Many islands lie off its coast: to the north are _________________ and to the west are _________________ _________________ and _________________ are large islands in this group.
5. The highest mountains are _________________ and _________________ in _________________ .
6. Other notable ranges of mountains or hills are _________________ in the south of the country and _________________ in the north.
7. The principal rivers are _________________ , _________________ and _________________
8. There are numerous lakes, or ‘lochs’ as they are called, for example _________________ and _________________.
9. The largest cities are _________________, which lies on _________________, and _________________________, which is close to _________________.
Task 4. Read the text below taken from “The Beauty of Britain” by J.B. Priestley. Explain its main idea. What does the author criticise? How many words referring to geography can you find in the text?
We live in one of the most beautiful islands in the world. This is a fact we are always forgetting. When beautiful islands are mentioned, we think of Trinidad and Tahiti. These are fine, romantic places, but they are not really as exquisitely beautiful as our own Britain. Before the mines and factories came, and long before we went from bad to worse with our arterial roads and petrol stations and horrible brick bungalows, this country must have been an enchantment. Even now, after we have been busy for so long flinging mud at this fair pale face, the enchantment still remains. Sometimes I doubt if we deserve to possess it. There can be few parts of the world in which commercial greed and public indifference have combined to do more damage than they have here. The process continues. It is still too often assumed that any enterprising fellow after quick profits has a perfect right to destroy a loveliness that is the heritage of the whole community.
The beauty of our country is as hard to define as it is easy to enjoy. Remembering other and larger countries, we see at once that one of its charms is that it is immensely varied within a small compass. We have here no vast mountain ranges, no illimitable plains. But we have superb variety. A great deal of everything is packed into little space. I suspect that we are always, faintly conscious of the fact that this is a smallish island, with the sea always round the corner. We know that everything has to be neatly packed into a small space. Nature, we feel, has carefully adjusted things – mountains, plains, rivers, lakes – to the scale of the island itself. A mountain 12, 000 feet high would be a horrible monster here, as wrong as a plain 400 miles long, a river as broad as the Mississippi. Though the geographical features of this island are comparatively small, and there is astonishing variety almost everywhere, that does not mean that our mountains are not mountains, our plains are not plains.
My own favourite country is that of the Yorkshire Dales. A day’s walk among them will give you almost everything fit to be seen on this earth. Within a few hours, you have enjoyed the green valleys, with their rivers, fine old bridges, pleasant villages, hanging woods, smooth fields, and then the moorland slopes, with their rushing streams, stone walls, salty winds and crying curlews, white farmhouses, and then the lonely heights which seem to be miles above the ordinary world, and moorland tracks as remote, it seems, as trails in Mongolia.
We have greater resources at our command than our ancestors had, and we are more impatient than they were. Thanks to our new resources, we are better able to ruin the countryside and even the towns, than our fathers were, but on the other hand, we are far more alive to the consequences of such ruin than they were.
Our children and their children after them must live in a beautiful country. It must be a country happily compromising between Nature and Man, blending what was best worth retaining from the past with what best represents the spirit of our own age, a country as rich in noble towns as it is in trees, birds, and wild flowers.
Task 5. Make a list of counties of Great Britain. Designate them all on the map.
Task 6. Make a 3-minute presentation of one of the counties of Great Britain in terms of physical geography.
Task 7. Speak on the natural resources which can be found in the United Kingdom. / Write 3-paragraph summary about the natural resources which can be found in the United Kingdom.
Exercise 13. Read the text below and do the tasks that follow it.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The United States of America is a federal republic of 50 states. There are 48 conterminous states which extend from latitude 25 N to 50 N and longitude 125 W to 67 W (4,500 km and four time zones from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast). The other two states, Hawaii and Alaska, are situated respectively in the tropical part of the Pacific Ocean (3,200 km from the mainland) and near the Arctic Circle. The 50 states form an area of 3,615,122 square miles (31 times the size of Italy), making the United States the fourth largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada, and China.
The country naturally presents a tremendous variety in physical features, ranging from moist rain forest to arid desert and bald mountain peaks. Mount McKinley in Alaska at 20,320 feet is the highest point in the United States, while part of Death Valley in California is 282 feet below sea level.
The eastern coast of the United States is a long, gently rolling lowland area known as the coastal plains. These coastal plains, which stretch from Maine to Texas, are very flat and often swampy. In general, the soil is very poor, except in the fertile southern part, where the plain reaches many miles inland.
At the western edge of the Atlantic coastal plain, there is a chain of low mountains, stretching from the northern part of Maine southwest into Alabama, called the Appalachian Mountains. These mountains contain enormous quantities of easily accessible coal and iron, which helps explain the huge concentration of heavy industry along the lower region of the Great Lakes.
The heart of the United States is a vast plain, broken by the Superior Upland and Black hills in the north and the Ozark Plateau in the south, which extends from Central Canada southwards to Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains westwards to the Cordillera. These interior plains, which rise gradually like a saucer to higher land on all sides, are divided into two major parts: the wetter, eastern portion is called the Central Plains and the western portion the Greater plains.
To the west of the Great Plains is the Cordillera, which accounts for one-third of the United States. It is a region of tremendous variety, which can be subdivided into various other regions. On its eastern border, the Rocky Mountains, a high, discontinuous chain of mountains stretching from mountainous Alaska down to Mexico, rise sharply from the Great Plains. These rugged mountains contain many important metals such as lead, uranium and gold.
The western edge of the Cordillera is characterized by a coastal chain of high mountains, among which there are broad, fertile valleys. The most important ranges are the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades (= Cascade Range) in the eastern part and the Coastal Ranges along the western coast. There is no Pacific coastal plain, and between these two sets of mountains there is a large plateau region, with steep cliffs and canyons, basins and isolated ranges. Many basins are rich in resources such as oil and natural gas.
Hawaii is a chain of twenty islands, only seven of which are inhabited. The mountainous islands were formed by volcanic activity and there are still a number of active volcanoes.
The United States has several immensely long rivers. There are a large number of rivers in the eastern part of the nation, the longest of which is the Missouri (3,942 km), a tributary of the Mississippi (3,760 km). Two other tributaries of the Mississippi – the Ohio and Tennessee – are more than 1,250 km long. In the West the Rio Grande, which forms part of the United States – Mexico border, flows for 3,016 km and only the Colorado, the Columbia and the San Joaquim - Sacramento river systems reach the Pacific.
Task 1. Make up 3 sentences to describe the following geographical features of the USA:
1. The administrative division of the USA
2. the Coastal Plains
3. the Appalachian Mountains
4. the interior plains
5. the Rockies
6. Hawaii
7. the biggest rivers of the USA
Task 2. Answer the questions below.
1. What is the highest mountain in the USA?
2. What is the lowest point?
3. What are the flattest areas?
4. What is the longest river?
5. What is the most northerly state?
6. What is the most westerly state?
Task 3. What do these figures stand for?
· 50
· 3,200
· 4,500
· 3,615,122
· 20,320
· 282
· 3,942
· 3,760
· 1,250
Task 4. Make a list of the states of the USA. Designate them all on the map. What is a ‘county’ in the USA? Fill in the table using your list:
| Name of the state | Abbreviation | Year of formation | Capital | Nickname |
Task 5. Make a 3-minute presentation of one of the states of the USA in terms of physical geography.
Task 6. Speaking and writing
- Write a 3-paragraph summary about the natural resources which can be found in the United States of America. Submit it to the teacher at the beginning of the next lesson.
- Make a 2-minute presentation on the natural resources which can be found in the United States of America.
Task 7. Using the map of Ukraine and additional information, make a 3-minute presentationon the following:
- physical geography of Ukraine
- natural resources which can be found in Ukraine
- one of the regions/oblast of Ukraine
Exercise 14. Read the text below and do the tasks that follow it.
ANTARCTICA
Note: mind the use of the article: the Antarctic but ___ Antarctica.
Antarctica is the fifth largest of the earth’s seven continents. During the winter, it
doubles in size because of the large amount of sea ice that forms at its edges. The names Arctic and Antarctica come from arktos – Greek for ‘bear’. This refers to the constellation ‘The Great Bear’, which can always be seen in the north.
Antarctica is more than 95 % covered in ice, and it contains about 90 % of the world’s fresh water. Because of its thick ice cover, it is the highest of all continents. The snow and ice of Antarctica are the purest in the world. The general isolation from the remainder of the world has allowed it to avoid the industrial pollution that is common to the other continents.
Antarctica is the coldest continent. The lowest temperature ever recorded anywhere on earth, - 88.3 C, was in 1960, at the Soviet Union’s Vostok Station.
Antarctica can be classified as a true desert, as the equivalent of just 7cm of water falls annually. It hasn’t rained at the South Pole since the end of the Pleistocene era, 1,000,000 years ago. The interior has almost continuous daylight during the summer and continuous darkness during the winter.
It has only two species of flowering plants, and virtually no flying insects. The surrounding ocean, however, abounds in living creatures. Large number of whales feed on the rich marine life. Seals and birds live and breed, but the most prominent inhabitant of the Antarctic is the penguin, of which there are over twelve million.
Today, around a thousand people call Antarctica home for several years at a time. Braving (very strong and challenging) winds that freeze the flesh, the constant threat of snow blindness, and the intense, unremitting cold, they are there for the extraordinary scientific treasures that await discovery. The ice retains ancient atmospheric samples and meteorites; the skies offer a direct line to space. This is the one place still untouched by man. This is a barometer for the potentially ruinous impact our species is having on the planet.
Task 1. Answer the questions below. In case of doubt, find out the information you need in the Internet.
1. What is the coldest point on the Earth?
2. What is the hottest point on the Earth?
3. What other extreme places on Earth do you know?
4. What is the place you would like to visit most? Give grounds.
5. Would you like to be on an expedition? Why?
6. What is the perfect place for research to your mind? Give grounds.
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