Text Geology of the Grand Canyon

ТЕСТ К ЭКЗАМЕНУ

по учебной дисциплине

Иностранный (Английский) язык 

для студентов II курса ГРФ 

ВАРИАНТ 04.1.3.2005

                                    Составители:          доцент А.И. Михеев

        ст. преп. Н.Н. Апухтина

                                                           преп. к.п.н. П.В. Борисова

Санкт-Петербург

2005г.

I. БЛОК АУДИРОВАНИЯ

Listen to the text and four dialogues and answer the questions. For item 1-15 choose the best answer 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.

Text

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

Dialogue 4

II. БЛОК ЧТЕНИЯ

Read the text. Choose the best alternatives 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 to answer the questions.

Text Geology of the Grand Canyon

The Gigantic Canyon is hidden, so that you come on it suddenly. You are in high country, but on a flat plain covered with nice-smelling pine woods. The best way to see the Canyon is to do exactly what most people do: walk over to the rim and look.

Look at what? At the inside of the earth. When you stand there at the rim looking down, you see two things. One: the hole itself, which is an odd, terrific, scenic thing, unique. The other: what you see through the hole. And this is not unique. You would see much the same sort of thing if you could cut the earth open in France or England, Texas or Arabia. It is a cross-section of the earth’s crust.

The earth’s crust is built up of layers of different rocks. At the Canyon one can clearly see 12 major layers, some red, some gray, some brown. Many of them are so regular, clear-cut, neat, they look almost manmade.

These layers in the Grand Canyon prove that the region, now a mile-and-a-half above sea level, was under the sea not only once but several times. At one time the river brought red mud. At another the sea was deep, and limestone formed. At still another time it was a river mouth, with sand bars and beaches.

Look down into the deepest part of the Canyon where the Colorado River is cutting a V-shaped gorge. You see that the rock there is dark and quite different from all the other layers. That’s the original land that went under the sea. Scientists call it the “basement”.

The interesting thing is that such layers aren’t just in Arizona. They are found all over the world. Most parts of the world have been under water at least once, and have come up again covered with a crust of fish bones and sea shells.

Why land sinks under the sea and rises again nobody knows. But it going on right now! The United States’ west coast is slowly rising, the southeast sinking. Scandinavia is tilting, the northern part going up, the southern part down. The Netherlands is sinking an inch every 100 years.