Subdivisions of regional geography
In regional geography analysis is concentrated on associations which give the character to a particular area. The area may be continental in size, or it may by subdivided into units such as countries, states and counties. Subdivisions of the world that are made on the basis of similarities of human life provide culture regions. Subdivisions on the basis of similarities of natural conditions provide physical regions. Thus, there are a geography of North America, a geography of United States, a geography of California, and a geography of Boston.
2. Say whether the following statements are true or false.
Use the following: that's right: nothing of the kind; / don't agree; I think that's exactly so; that's true; that's not right.
Topical geography may be focused on physical or human phenomena.
One of the geographic branches is climatology.
The speciality which treat the form, size and movements of the earth is called urban geography.
Political geography emphasizes the pattern of the earth's political sovereignties.
Subdivisions on the basis of similarities of natural conditions provide culture regions.
3. Find the right definition for the following concepts
1)Отрасль географии, изучающая природные явления и объекты земной поверхности.
2)Отрасль географии, изучающая особенности, объекты и феномены земной поверхности, которые непосредственно связаны с человеком и его деятельностью.
3)Отрасль географии, изучающая границы, административное деление и владения государств.
4)Наука, изучающая распределение живых организмов по земному шару и причины его изменения.
5) Отрасль географии, изучающая закономерности территориального размещения производства, экономической структуры хозяйства стран и регионов.
4. Find the right definition for the following concepts
| a. Political geography | Отрасль географии, изучающая природные явления и объекты земной поверхности. |
| b. Economic geography | Отрасль географии, изучающая особенности, объекты и феномены земной поверхности, которые непосредственно связаны с человеком и его деятельностью. |
| c. Urban geography | Отрасль географии, изучающая границы, административное деление и владения государств. |
| d. Physical geography | Наука, изучающая распределение живых организмов по земному шару и причины его изменения. |
| e. Human geography | Отрасль географии, изучающая закономерности территориального размещения производства, экономической структуры хозяйства стран и регионов. |
| f. Biogeography | Учение о месте, эволюции, структуре классификации городских поселений и городов. |
5. Translate into English
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География - наука, предметом изучения которой является описание форм и физических особенностей земли, ее природных и политических градаций, а также климата, общественного производства, населения и т.д. разных стран.
Components of maps.
1. Read and translate the text
Despite their variety, all maps have similar components, or parts. These include a title; a legend or key; a direction indicator; and a scale.
The title of a map identifies what the map is about and what parts of the earth it shows. The title of some maps includes a date. Dates are useful on maps showing features that change over time. A map with the title "Distribution of Population in France: 1920", for example, should not be used when looking for figures on the present population of France.
A legend or key explains the meaning of colors and symbols used on a map. A map with areas shown in green, red, and blue might be misunderstood unless the user knows what the green, red, and blue represent. The legend also explains the meaning of symbols used on a map, such as stars for capital cities.
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Every map should have a direction indicator. One such indicator is an arrow that points north. A different way to find directions on a map is to study the parallels and meridians. East and west directions follow parallels, or lines of latitude. North and south directions follow meridians, or lines of longitude. Parallels and meridians cross each other to form an imaginary grid over the earth. Because each degree can be broken into 60 minutes (‘) and each minute can be broken into 60 seconds ("), this grid can be used to fix the precise location of any point on the earth's surface.
The most important longitude is called the Greenwich Meridian, because it passes through a place called Greenwich in London where there is a famous observatory. The longitude of the Greenwich Meridian is 0 degrees. At Greenwich local time is called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). All places on the same meridian have the same local time. When it is noon at a given meridian, it is after noon or post meridiem (p.m.) at places which lie to the east of it. This is because the earth rotates from west to east. At the same time the sun will be before noon or ante meridiem (a.m.) at places lying to the west.
Map scales and projections. A map scale provides statistical information used to measure distances on a map. While maps have similar components, they do not always show areas of the world in exactly the same way. The size and shape of North America, for example, may look somewhat different on two different maps. The differences occur because the two maps use different map projections, or methods by which the features of the earth's curved surface are transferred onto a flat map.
No matter which projection is used, every map has some distortions that are inevitable in the process of illustrating the earth's spherical surface on a flat map. Certain distortions, however, are worse on some projections than on others. Mapmakers choose which projection to use depending on what undistorted features, or map properties, are most important to be illustrated. The four most useful map properties are correct shape, correct size, correct distance, and correct direction. No world map can have all four map properties. Maps of smaller areas, however, may have less distortion than maps of larger areas.
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2. Say whether the following statements are true or false
a. Every map has a title, legend or key, a direction indicator and a scale.
b. A legend or key identifies what the map is about and what part of the earth it shows.
c. One of the ways to find directions on a map is to study the meridians and parallels.
d. Each degree can be broken into 60 seconds.
e. The latitude of the Greenwich Meridian is 0 degrees.
f. The earth rotates from east to west.
g. The most useful maps properties are correct size, correct shape, correct distance, correct direction.
h. Maps of larger areas may have less distortion than maps of smaller areas.
3.Guess the words in brackets
a. An important town or city where the central government of a country is. (……………..)
b. The relations between the size of a map, drawing, or model and actual size of the place or thing it represents. (…………….)
c. An image of something that has been projected, especially an image of the world surface on a map. (………….)
d. An imaginary line drawn from north pole to the south pole over the surface of the Earth, used to show the position of places on a map. (……….)
e. An imaginary line drown on a map of the Earth, that is parallel to the equator. (……………)
f. The time as measured at Greenwich in London. (………..)
g. It explains the meaning of symbols and colors used on a map. (…………..)
h. A sign in the shape of an arrow, used to show direction. (……………)
i. A kind of inaccuracy contained on maps. (……….)
4. Complete the following sentences
1. Despite their variety, all maps have...........
2. The title of some maps includes ............... which are useful on maps showing
3. East or west directions follow .............. , the north and south directions follow
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4. An imaginary grid over the earth can be used to............
5. The most important longitude is............
6. When it is noon at Greenwich it is........... at places which lie to the east of it, and
at places lying to the west.
Composition of the Oceans
1. Read the text
If you have ever been swimming in the ocean, you know that the water is salty. When the oceans first began filling, rivers carried countless tons of dissolved compounds from the land to the oceans. As a result, the oceans became salty. Almost all of the elements of the earth’s crust can be found in today’s ocean water. For example, 1 km3 of ocean water contains over 10 kg of gold. Could this gold be extracted from the water? Extracting gold from the water would cost more than the gold is worth, but many other elements, such as bromine, magnesium, and salt, can be extracted economically from the ocean waters.
If 1 kg (about 1 L) of normal ocean water is allowed to evaporate, about 34.5 g of salts are left behind. The most abundant of these salts is sodium chloride (NaCl) – common table salt.
Salinity is the measure of the amount of salts dissolved in ocean water. Salinity is usually expressed in grams per kilogram of sea water. The average salinity of the ocean is 34.5 g/kg. Areas where evaporation is high have higher-than average salinity. Areas of high salinity include tropical oceans, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Red Sea. Examples of low-salinity areas are the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic and the Black Sea.
The water that flows from the land is called fresh water. Fresh water is not the same thing as pure water. Pure water contains water molecules and nothing else. Fresh water contains elements and compounds eroded from the rocks and soil by rainwater.
Of all the chemicals dissolved in Earth’s waters, only silica and nitrate are more concentrated in fresh water than in ocean water. Silica and nitrate are not as concentrated in ocean water because they are used by ocean organisms. Silica, or silicon dioxide (SiO2), is used by some organisms to make their shells. Nitrate (NO3¯ ) is removed from sea water by ocean plants to make proteins.
There are two elements that occur in much greater quantities in ocean water than in fresh water – chlorine and sodium. These two elements stay dissolved in ocean water, making it “salty.” Although sodium and chlorine are continually added to ocean water, ocean salinity does not increase. Excess sodium and chlorine precipitate out of ocean water and accumulate in ocean sediments.
Ocean water also contains dissolved atmospheric gases. Most of the carbon dioxide on Earth is dissolved in the oceans; only a small fraction of Earth’s carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. The opposite is true of nitrogen and oxygen. Very little nitrogen and oxygen are dissolved in the ocean; most is in the atmosphere.
2. Decide where these sentences go in the text
a. The answer is yes; however, the concentration of gold is only about 10 parts of gold per trillion parts of water.
b. Areas where a lot of rain, melting ice, or river water enters the oceans have lower-than-average salinity.
c. Ocean water reached its salinity more than a billion years ago.
3. Look at the text and find a word which means the same as:
Water in rivers and lakes that you can drink
4. Decide if the following statements are true or false
1. It is possible to extract gold from ocean water.
2. The high salinity of the Mediterranean Sea is a result of high evaporation.
3. Fresh water contains more elements than pure water.
4. Shells of some ocean organisms are made of carbon dioxide.
5. Ocean salinity increases over the ages.
6. Most of Earth’s carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen are dissolved in the ocean.
Energy and Civilisation
1. Read and translate the following teхt
Almost all the energy available to us on the earth today has come ultimately from a single source - the sun. Light and heat reach us directly from the sun; food and wood owe their chemical energy to sunlight falling on plants; water power exists bccause the sun's heat evaporates water constantly from the oceans. The fossil fuels coal, oil. and natural gas were formed from plants and animals that lived and stored energy derived from sunlight millions of years ago.
Modern civilisation owes its spectacular development in large measure to the discovery of vast sources of energy and to the development of new methods of storing and transforming it. Within less than 200 yearn man has learnt to convert the chemical energy of coal, oil, and natural gas into mechanical energy, to store chemical energy in explosives, to get electrical energy from moving water, and to use electrical energy for heating. lighting, mechanical work, and communication. In the development of nuclear reactors a new energy source has been tapped the energy stored in the interior of atoms. Other possible sources, still being explored, arc the energy of tides and radiant energy direct from the sun.
It is evident how rapidly man's use of energy has grown in the last few decades. The chief reason is the increase in average energy use per person. A century ago, the rise of industrial revolution led to the use of about 300 million ./ per person per day in the more advanced countries. Today the number of people who share the benefits of industrialisation is much greater and they each tend to use more energy as well: in the United States, the energy used per person per day is three times the above figure. In fact, the United States, with 6 percent of the w orld's population, uses 35 percent of its energy.
Not all of the energy consumed today goes inro manufacturing, transportation, lighting, space heating, and other traditional applications more and more is being used to produce the artificial fertilisers needed by modem agriculture. This brings us to the aptly named population explosion: the world's population will double in the next 30 years or so. To double food production is certainly possible, but only by the heavy use of fertilisers which will require disproportionately large amounts of energy. It is impossible to add substantially to the supply of food without first adding more substantially still to the energy supply. What will happen if the population eontinues to increase past the doubling that is in sight is not reassuring to contemplate.
Clearly it is not possible to project present trends of energy demand very far ahead. On the supply side, the fossil fuels that today provide about 98 percent of man's energy will sooner or later be exhausted. Natural gas will be the first fossil fuel to run out. followed soon afterward by oil. Coal reserves are much greater, and ought to last at least another century. Nuclear fuels, too. are sufficient for another century or more. And if practical methods for utilising thermonuclear energy are devised, the energy reserves available to man will be virtually unlimited. Though fossil fuels must inevitably diminish in importance, there seems to be no basic reason w hy other sources of energy cannot take their place.
However, despite the piobable presence of adequate fuel of one kind or another, the current rate of increase of energy consumption cannot continue for very much longer. What stands in the way is the intiinsic inefficiency of all methods of converting heat into mechanical energy, electrical energy is included here, since it is produced by using mechanical energy to power generators. The inefficiency is not due to poor machinery but to the laws of thermodynamics some heat must be wasted in every heat engine. Even nuclear energy is inefficient, because it is turned into heat in a reactor and this heat is then used to operate a steam turbine which is connected to an electric generator. The conversion of heat into mechanical energy cannot be more than partly efficient, and some heat must be given off to the outside world.
Even today the disposal of waste heat from power plants is a problem in the heavily industrialised pans of the world. Generating plants in the United States already use about 10 percent of the flow of all the rivers and streams of the country for cooling purposes. There are likely to be serious biological consequences if the scale of heating of inland waters rises much further, and if waste heat is instead discharged into the atmosphere with the help of cooling towers, the weather and climate of the region involved may be changed in a perhaps harmful way. Although the oceans can safely absorb much waste heat, locating power plants exclusively on their shores poses the question of transmitting the energy they produce for thousands of miles inland.
Nevertheless it seems clear that a considerable further increase in energy consumption is possible without undue environmental damage provided care is used. It also seems clear that no increase is possible which can keep up for much longer with both the current rise in world-wide living standards and the current rise in world population. The laws of thermodynamics are not subject to repeal, and a future energy crisis will represent a social failure, not a technological one.
2. Find the terms in the text which describe the following:
· coal, oil and natural gas
· the number of people in the world
· something made by man: not natural
· farming
3. These words can he explained in simpler, more everyday language. Can you do that?
· derive
· consume
· substantially
· contemplate
· sufficient
· utilise
4. Now look at these statements. Lsing the information from the text, say If they are correct or Incorrect:
· We have water power because sunlight gives water chemical energy
· Animals and plants are the origin of fossil fuels
· Man makes considerable use of radiant energy today
· The United States uses more than halt'the world's energy
· The amount of energy used in agriculture is increasing
· We cannot double food production in the next 30 years
· The writer is not worried about the population increase
· The three fossil fuels will last another 100 years
AFRICA
1. Read and translate the text
Africa is the world's second largest continent (next to Asia) in both area and population. Its area of 11,699,000 square miles is more than three times the size of the United States, and its 1990 population of 642 million made up 12 percent of the world's total. Africa encompasses over fifty nations, ranging in size from Nigeria (with a population of more than 120 million) to small island countries such as Cape Verde (population 424,000). Africa is commonly divided into two regions delineated by the Sahara Desert, which runs through northern Africa. The countries north of the Sahara are generally considered more developed than those in sub- Saharan Africa, where most of the continent's population resides. With an estimated one thousand different languages spoken and at least as many distinct ethnic groups, Africa is perhaps the most linguistically and ethnically diverse of all the world's continents.Two hundred ethnic groups have at least half a million people; no single group accounts for more than five percent of Africa's total population.
For much of history, non-Africans have referred to Africa— especially sub- Saharan Africa—as the "Dark Continent."This was a reflection of European and American ignorance of Africa's interior geography and rich cultural and political history. Europeans established trading posts on Africa's coasts beginning in the late 1400s and over the next centuries developed an extensive trade with the peoples they encountered—a trade that included the exportation of African slaves to New World colonies. However, due to disease, topography, and African resistance, lit- tie European exploration or penetration of Africa's large interior was done until the nineteenth century. "Kept on the fringes of Africa, and ignorant of it," writes historian Robert Garfield, "Europeans turned the situation around and assumed it was Africans who were isolated. They thus created the myth of the 'Dark Continent,' though the darkness was only in European minds." Europe's rush to colonize Africa in the nineteenth century was motivated in part by a quest to "enlighten" African peoples with European religion and civilization.
In contemporary times Africa has remained a "Dark Continent" for many not because of geographic isolation or foreign ignorance, but because of the frequent humanitarian disasters and political misfortunes that have brought global attention to the region. "The next time you read about Africa in the news," writes Liberian journalist C.William Allen, "it will most likely be in a story about a military coup d'etat, political corruption, [or] a catastrophe of major proportions." Sub-Saharan Africa, which contains a tenth of the world's people, is the location of half the planet's wars and refugees and most of its famines. In the 1990s alone Africans have suffered through continuing war in Angola, a collapse of government, ethnic conflict, and starvation in Somalia, slavery and war in Sudan, genocide and massive refugee flows in Rwanda, a brutal civil war in Liberia, and political repression and corruption in many other countries. Even in nations that have escaped major wars or famines, Africans have been faced with a steady decline in their quality of life as measured by poverty rates, school enrollments, per capita incomes, and life expectancies.
2. Comprehension Check: Are the following statements TRUE or FALSE?
1. Africa is the world's largest continent (next to Asia) in both area and population.
2. Africa encompasses over one hundred nations.
3. Africa is perhaps the most linguistically and ethnically diverse of all the world's continents.
4. For much of history, non-Africans have referred to Africa — especially sub-Saharan Africa —as the "Dark Continent”.
5. Sub-Saharan Africa, which contains a third of the world's people, is the location of half the planet's wars and refugees and most of its famines.
3. Pick out the necessary word. More than one word may be correct.
A. I think she's just the right person for the job. She has the degree, the experience.
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