talk trees

Vocabulary and Reading Section

A. Read the following text without a dictionary, and try to get the message. Don’t worry if you don’t know some of the words.

Trees talk about a plot to kill caterpillars

	Trees talk to each other! At least they do in the woods near Seattle, where Dr. Gordon Orians and Dr. David Rhoades from the University of Washington have found that the willows and the alders warn each other when they are being attacked by leaf-eating insects. ‘I know it sounds like something right out of a comic strip, but it is definitely a form of communication we’ve witnessed in dozens and dozens of trees’, Dr. Orians said. ‘We cannot explain what happened without assuming that trees being damaged by insects released a chemical in the air that warns nearby undamaged trees to prepare a defense against these insects.’ About four years ago, Dr. Orians and Dr. Rhoades set out to find how trees survive mass attacks by insects such as tent caterpillars and webworms. The two ecologists placed swarms of as many as 700 tent caterpillars and webworms in the branches of willows and alders. The trees being attacked began producing chemicals such as alkaloids and terpenoids. ‘The insects began to loose their vitality,’ Dr. Orians said.

Now, write T if the statement is true according to the text and F if the statement is false.

1. ‘they’ in line three refers to the trees.
2. Dr. Orians and Dr. Rhoades are ecologists.
3. Caterpillars and webworms are leaf-eating insects.
4. Willow tree and alders tree communicate to each other.
5. The chemicals produced by the tree make the insects loose their vitality.

B. Learn the following idioms and their meanings.

idiom	meaning
In apple pie order	very well organized
Full of beans	full of nonsense
Out of the frying pan into a fire	from a bad situation to a worse situation
Apple of someone’s eye	someone’s favorite person or thing
As cool as cucumber	calm

Writing Section

Make one sentence for each of the above idioms.

Example:

- In apple pie order: Her room is so neat; everything is always in apple pie order.

1. Full of beans
2. Out of the frying pan into a fire
3. Apple of someone’s eye
4. As cool as cucumber

Translation Section

Translate the following text.

Habitat

A habitat is a place where organisms live. Habitat is the place where the animals can obtain food, shelter, and protection. Two kinds of habitat are natural habitats and man-made habitats. The man-made habitats are such as the zoo and the aquarium. These habitats are prepared by man for animals to live in. they are not natural and built in based on man’s understanding towards the surrounding needed by animals in their home. The forests, lakes, rivers and seas are all natural habitats for various kinds of animals. These natural habitats are found and exist naturally.