TASK 4: Answer the questions using Text A.

1. Why does design deserve your best thinking?

2. When can you begin to work on all the little details?

3. What will a series of individual plans help you do?

4. What may you do depending on the scope of your project?

5. What jobs require special and sometimes costly tools?

6. What sources will you be getting materials from?

TASK 5: Retell Text A in short using the new words. Begin your sentences with one of the given phrases:

1. The text is devoted to …

2. First it is stated that …

3. Then the author goes on to the description of …

4. It is interesting to note that …

5. The fact is that …

6. It should be emphasized that …

7. In the end it is concluded that …

8. In my opinion …

 

TASK 6. Read Text B and answer the question after it:

Text B

Using Materials and Resources Wisely

Putting resources to good (and efficient) use not only reduces the impact of your landscaping project, but it also saves you money. After all, you’re buying cheaper materials and using less of them. Creating a conventional landscape requires lots of materials, and over time it requires more and more resources to keep it going. Why? Because most landscapes aren’t designed along the lines of nature and its life cycles and systems.

Nature is really good at fostering ecosystems that are self-regulating and able to live on locally available resources. Think about it: Nobody waters, fertilizes, or sprays wild areas with pesticides, and yet they continue growing for millions of years. By making your landscape more in keeping with the rules of nature, you’ll enjoy the same benefits found in a natural system.

So an important principle to apply when you’re designing your landscape is simply to use fewer materials and resources. For instance, a landscape that’s dominated by hardscape (constructed features, like a concrete patio or a wrought iron fence) creates enormous impacts off-site where the materials are obtained and processed.

The production of concrete, for instance, requires strip mining of rock, sand, and the other minerals that go into making cement. Manufacturing cement also generates a lot of carbon dioxide — over a billion metric tons per year worldwide. Concrete is just one example of how much damage is done by our addiction to high-tech landscaping materials. And you know what? Concrete is expensive, too!

After a conventional landscape made with lots of materials is completed, its appetite for water, fertilizer, and other resources — not to mention the labor and money that all this requires — will vary depending on how skillfully the landscape was initially designed. On the other hand, a landscape that’s an internally stable, highly-functioning ecosystem won’t need much help from you or require many materials to keep it going.

Answer the question: Why is it better to try to create an internally stable, highly-functioning ecosystem instead of a conventional landscape?

TASK 7. Match the beginnings and the endings of the sentences and arrange them in the logical order to make a short variant of the story “Using Materials and Resources Wisely”:

 

1. Nobody waters, fertilizes, or sprays wild areas with pesticides, 2. Most landscapes aren’t designed 3. So an important principle to apply 4. Creating a conventional landscape 5. Putting resources to good (and efficient) use 6. Nature is really good at fostering ecosystems

a) along the lines of nature. b) requires lots of materials. c) that are self-regulating. d) and yet they continue growing for millions of years. e) is simply to use fewer materials and resources. f) saves you money.

 

 

ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ 1

Rendering cliché

(речевые клише, используемые для краткого изложения прочитанного текста (резюме)