大象传媒

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Last updated at 12:14 BST, Monday, 01 October 2012

A clean sweep

Video

Report and vocabulary

Transcript

A job that requires a head for heights.

Some bin men in Rio have to abseil down shanty town hills to retrieve what others have left behind.

A harness and ropes are the essential tools for reaching items such as old fridges, food wrappers, guns and even a body.

A big clean-up operation is underway as Brazil prepares to host the World Cup and the Olympics.

a head for heights

to be able to be in a high place without feeling scared or uncomfortable

bin men

people whose job it is to collect rubbish

to abseil

to go down a steep mountain or vertical drop using a rope

harness

support made of straps that are attached to the body

underway

happening

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 head for heights/ bin men/ to abseil/ harness/ underway

1. A Suffolk businessman followed Prince Andrew's lead _______ down The Shard to raise money to help injured marines.

2. A three-week-old kitten who was dumped in a bin narrowly escaped being crushed by a recycling truck in Devon. The female, named Lucky, was emptied into the back of a waste truck. Its crusher was stopped by two _______ who heard the kitten's cries.

3. Taking a tour of the east London site with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, she proved she had _______ as she was whisked up to the top of the 114.5m Orbit Tower.

4. As the big United Nations meeting gets _______, the West's biggest foreign policy challenge is not likely to be discussed.

5. Stewart was the first driver to wear seatbelts, who insisted circuits should be lined by barriers, on fire-resistant clothing, pit walls, six-point safety _______ and crash structures in cars.

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Exercise

Answers

How did you do?

1

to abseil

2

bin men

3

a head for heights

4

underway

5

harness

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