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The natural world
beak
Animals
wing whiskers
breast tail
nest
eggs scales gills claws paw
Flowers and trees leaves twig
T
Specific animals
Here are the English names of some more unusual creatures.
frog bee parrot shark
J' seagull
crab
Names of trees
Here are the names of some of the commonest British trees. You are likely to meet these
words if you read fiction or poetry in English.
chestnut fir
Some verbs for talking about the natural world
Our apple tree flowers/blossoms in April. / Let's pick some flowers (not pick up). /
Farmers plant, fertilise and harvest their crops.
1 A good bilingual dictionary will help you to find the words for the most frequent flowers, animals
and trees in your area, if they are not included on this page.
04 English Vocabulary in Use (Upper-intermediate)
Exercises
SI. I Can you answer the following general knowledge questions about the natural world?
1 Is the shark a fish or a ram-Mal? •
2 Are the following trees deciduous [lose their leaves in winter] or evergreen [green all
year round] — oak, willow, pine, chestnut?
3 What does the bee take from flowers to make honey?
4 Name three animals that hibernate [go to sleep] in winter.
5 What might a British boy or girl say while pulling the petals off a daisy?
6 Name three flowers and three birds in English.
7 Which is the fastest of all land animals?
8 What plants or animals are the symbols of (a) England and (b) New Zealand?
9 What plant or animal is the symbol of your country?
10 What do fish use their gills for?
11 Which of these creatures is extinct [not alive any more] — emu, dinosaur, phoenix?
12 Can you name an endangered species [species at risk of becoming extinct]? 1
5 1.2 Divide these words into two or three groups in any way that seems appropriate to you:
hedgehog mane petals eagle oak willow worm bark
5 1.3 Fill in the blanks in the sentences below using words from the opposite page.
1 A tree's go a long way under ground.
2 A cat sharpens its against the of a tree.
3 Most fruit trees in spring.
4 Flowers will not unless they get enough water and light.
5 The horse is limping. It must have hurt its
6 Flowers last longer in a vase if you crush the end of their
7 A flower that is just about to open is called a
8 Take care not to prick yourself. That plant has sharp
9 If we pick up those , we can use them to start the fire.
10 use a kind of radar to find their way around.
11 move very, very slowly.
12 Most crops in the UK are in the autumn.
51.4 Look at this description of a chimpanzee from a children's book. Underline four or five
collocations used in the text.
Chimpanzees are many people's favourite great ekes, but they are not the cuddly creatures •
often portrayed in the media.Wild chimps are intelligent, powerful animals that live in
complex communitieS.They Often work together to hunt other animals and they have
been known to Wage waron'their-OWn'kind.They have developed a marvellous range of
tool-using skills, and. have been able tq .adapi to .both forest and Savannah regions in central.i::
and westerriAfrice; But what Makes chimpanzees SO fascinating is their close relationship to
humans. Net only do they look like us, but they often seem to behave like us as well.
51.5 Use the collocations you underlined in exercise 51.4 to write sentences of your own about
any of the animals you have worked on in this unit.
English Vocabulary in Use (Upper-intermediate) 105
