Lesson 68 PartⅠ

Lesson  68

PartⅠWarming-up Exercises

Sentence Structure

Training Focus:

Understanding comparatives

Directions: This drill is for practice in understanding comparatives. Listen carefully. Choose a, b, or c as the correct response to the statement you hear on the tape.

Key:

1. Monkeys are more intelligent than many people think. (c)

2. Pandas prefer cold weather to hot weather. (c)

3. Whales are much bigger than sharks, but for some reasons harks are fiercer. (a)

4. We had more than enough time to see the animals in the zoo. (a)

5. When the new elephant has been here a little longer, it will become less aggressive. (b)

6. Horses cannot run as fast as deer can. (b)

7. A baby kangaroo doesn't look like its parents at all. (a)

8. An Asian elephant can live longer than an African elephant. (b)

Lesson 68 PartⅡ

Lesson  68

Ex.Ⅰ

Directions: Supply relevant information about the differentfeatures of an elephant according to what you hear on the tape.

Key: (see tapescript)

Ex.Ⅱ

Directions: Use your own words to complete the form on the characteristics of elephants according to the information you hear on the tape.

Key: (see tapescript)

Tapescript:

Elephant (Ⅰ)  (2′30″)

Today's talk is about an animal which you are all familiar with ---- the elephant. You are going to hear about its main characteristics and habits, the two varieties of elephant and the use made of elephants.

The elephant is the largest of all the animals that live on land. Its size is its most noteworthy ----and striking ----feature and after that, I suppose, its trunk. An elephant's trunk is rather like an arm and a hand: it is used to pick up and put things in its mouth. It is also used to draw up water: either to drink or for the purpose of washing. Then we might note its skin, which is thick and almost hairless, and finally its tusks. These ----the tusks, that is ----are in fact teeth, which it uses for cutting. I will just mention those points again: its size, trunk, (rather like an arm and a hand), skin (thick and hairless), and tusks.

Elephants are gregarious ----that is to say, they live in herds ----herds which number from about fifty to a hundred. The head of the herd is usually a female elephant, not a male. Elephants travel slowly, rarely going faster than fifteen to twenty miles an hour at the most, and when they move from one forest to another, they often travel in single column.

Despite their size, elephants, surprisingly, are timid animals, although the male elephant can be fierce and even dangerous. They are not considered to be intelligent, but they do have good memories, and for that reason they can be trained and put to work, as we shall see below. They have a strong sense of smell, but they do not see or hear well. As for how long elephants live, this is not known exactly, but the general belief is that they are long-lived. In the wild, for example, elephants live for about fifty years, and in captivity they live for even longer periods.

Elephants are vegetarian. They live mostly on grass, leaves and fruit. They are especially fond of bamboo shoots, for example, but they also eat the twigs and bark of trees. The quantity of food and water which they consume is enormous, and they can be very destructive in their search for food, in fact.

Lesson 68 Part Ⅲ

Lesson  68

Ex.Ⅰ

Directions: What are some of the major differences between the two main types of elephants? Write down the essential points in the given spaces.

Key: (see tapescript)

Ex.Ⅱ

Directions: Write down the questions you hear on the tape and then answer them.

1.Why are Indian elephants easy to train?

2.What sort of heavy work are elephants made to do?

Key: (see tapescript)

Tapescript:

Elephant (Ⅱ)  (1′1″)

There are two main types of elephants. There is the Asiatic elephant, which is found in India, for example, and the African elephant. Superficially they are very much alike, but the African elephant is generally larger. One characteristic of Asiatic elephants is that they do not like being exposed to the sun, and consequently they prefer to live in shady places. They are also very fond of bathing.

Apart from that, the most important difference between the two varieties----between the Asiatic and the African elephants, that is----is that the Asiatic elephant is more easily trained. Elephants in India, for example, have been caught and tamed for many hundreds of years. We have already noted that they have good memories, and it is this that makes them easy to train. Since they are immensely strong, they can carry and drag huge objects, such as the trunks of trees, and rocks. This makes them extremely valuable as beasts of burden.