大象传媒

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving.

Last updated at 15:20 BST, Wednesday, 04 April 2012

Standing tall

Video

Report and vocabulary

transcript

A bird's eye view of London.

The final piece of steel in a building nicknamed the Shard has been put in place. When completed, it will be the European Union's tallest skyscraper.

But the work isn't for the faint-hearted. The structure reaches 310 metres.

With 87 storeys, the building will house residences, offices, a hotel and viewing gallery.

a bird's eye view

a view from a high place from which you can see a vast area

nicknamed

a name used informally instead of a real name

faint-hearted

timid, not confident

storeys

floors

(to) house (verb)

to accommodate

Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from 大象传媒 news reports.

Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

a bird's eye view / nicknamed / faint-hearted / storeys / (to) house (verb)


1.

Tickling a gorilla is not for the _________. But keeper Phil Ridges is not worried at getting into the enclosure with Emmie at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent.

2.

Spain's relatively new army museum is _______ in the spectacular Alcazar in Toledo. Once a fortress, it was largely destroyed in a famous siege during the Spanish Civil War, before being rebuilt by Franco.

3.

A ewe thought to have been a contender for the title of world's oldest sheep has died after falling off a cliff. An ear tag on the blackface ewe, _________ Methuselina, showed that it was 25 years and 11 months old.

4.

Visitors will be guided through nine exhibitions, spread over four ________, charting the history of the Titanic from its construction in the nearby Harland & Wolff shipyard to its final resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic.

5.

A large platform has been carved out of the side of the hill above the mine that will offer _________ of the rescue operations.

Downloads

To take away:

Exercise

Answers

How did you do?

1

faint-hearted

2

housed

3

nicknamed

4

storeys

5

a bird's eye view

Local Navigation