VOCABULARY.

Exercise 1. Give the three forms of the irregular verbs from the text.

Take, fall, begin, blow, fly, lose, leave, catch, bring, come.

Exercise 2. Find the sentences with the following adjectives and adverbs in the text. Read and translate the sentences.

Exercise 3. Give the degrees of comparison of the following adjectives.

Violent, dangerous, small, clear, probable, wise.

Exercise 4. Give nouns of the following words.

Fly, lose, arrive, available, forecast, strong, dangerous, probable, wise,

Exercise 5. Match the words with the similar meaning in column A and column B.

A B

violent power

fury home

whirl follow

dangerous spin

track perilous

strength strong

shelter intensity

Exercise 6. Find in the text the English equivalents for the following Russian words and phrases. Reproduce the situations in which they are used.

Циклон; наносить ущерб; происходить (возникать); в течение нескольких дней; для того, чтобы определить; приборы записи температуры, давления и влажности воздуха; выставлять вахту наблюдения; делать предупреждение; продукты с длительным сроком хранения; вещи, которые им могут понадобиться; из-за; терять признаки циклона.

Exercise 7. Paraphrase using the words from the text.

The calm center of the storm; to come to being; an instrument for determining factors that provide insight into the characteristics of the storm, to cause something to spin round; to evacuate a house, to lose the characteristics of hurricanes.

Exercise 8. Put the missing prepositions.

1. Hurricanes cause millions … dollars … property damage.

2. Hurricanes normally originate … the Atlantic Ocean west … Cape Verde Islands … August and September.

3. A center … low pressure forms and winds begin to whirl … it.

4. Hurricane hunters fly … … the storm … order … determine its size and intensity.

5. They also look … the size … waves … the ocean.

6. People often lose their lives … leaving shelter when the eye has arrived.

7. The forecasters issue a hurricane watch … a large, general area that may be … the pass .. the storm.

8. People stock … … nonperishable foods, flashlight and other items they may need if electricity and water are not available … the storm.

Exercise 9. Fill the gaps in these sentences with the suitable words given below.

Lose, increase, need, available, to be likely, fall, underestimate, in order to, issue, return, originate, property, cause.

1. Hurricanes … millions of dollars in … damage.

2. People often … the fury of hurricanes.

3. Hurricanes normally … over the Atlantic Ocean during August or September.

4. For several days the area of the storm … and the air pressure … slowly.

5. Hurricane hunters fly out to the storm … determine its size and intensity

6. Once the forecasters have determined that hurricanes … to reach shore they … a hurricane watch.

7. People in these areas stock up on nonperishable foods and some items they may … if electricity and water are not … after the storm.

8.Hurricanes generally … power slowly while travelling over land but many move out to sea, gather up force again, and … to land.

Exercise 10. Answer the following questions.

1.What are hurricanes?

2.Where and how do they normally originate?

3. What do we call people who study hurricanes?

4. Hurricane hunters fly out to the storm to determine its size and intensity, don’t they?

5. Do the forecasters issue a hurricane watch once they have determined that it is likely the hurricane will reach shore?

5. What devices are used for studying hurricanes?

7. How do people in hurricane areas prepare for hurricane coming?

8. Do hurricanes lose power slowly or rapidly?

9. Are hurricanes dangerous? Why?

Exercise 11. Make an outline of the text.

Exercise 12. Give a short summary of the text.

CLOCKS IN YOUR HEAD

There’s no escaping the brain’s built-in alarm.

Many of us look forward to sleep as a respite from the worries of the day. But it is not as free from care as we might hope, according to Jan Born, a nueroendocrinologist at the University of Luebeck in Germany. Even as we doze, our brains somehow keep track of our daily schedule and signal the release of a stress hormone one hour before we have to get up. By then, hitting the snooze button is just fighting the inevitable.

The key to the body’s internal alarm clock is adrenocorticotrophic hormone, or ACTH, which helps regulate the nervous system. In response to a stressful situation – being pursued by a pack of wolves, for instance – or even the anticipation of such an event, the pituitary gland pumps out ACTH, which in turn triggers other hormones that prepare the body to fight or run.

Production of stress hormones is suppressed during sleep, but concentrations of ACTH in the blood increase before a person wakes up. Sleep researchers used to believe this pattern is invariable, a part of the body’s normal, daily rhythms. But Born and four university colleagues wondered if the pituitary gland could respond to an anticipated event during sleep, just as it does when a person is awake, and adjust ACTH levels accordingly. In a recent study, he advised one group pf volunteers that they would be awakened at nine o’clock in the morning; he told another group that he would rouse them at six. He turned the lights off at midnight and then closely monitored the subject’s brain activity and ACTH levels as they slept. At 5 AM, ACTH levels increased drastically in the early risers, who had expected to wake up in an hour, but remained low in the late sleepers, who had expected to sleep a few more hours. When Born surprised the late sleepers by waking them up at 6AM, however, their ACTH levels were still low. The results appear in the January 7 issue of Nature.

“This is the first evidence that expectation and anticipation, which are associated with conscious wakefulness, intrude into sleep,” says Born. “There may be other processes during sleep, like dreaming, that can be regulated voluntarily.”

Born’s work also demonstrates how some people seem to be able to get up when they need to without using an alarm clock. Waking up is often an act of will, and not an involuntary response. The brain keeps track of time and can adjust ACTH levels on demand. People often report waking just moments before their alarm is supposed to ring. Born’s study not only explains how that is possible, it implies that we could exploit that ability much more that we generally do.

The new findings also emphasize that ACTH gives the body tremendous flexibility in adjusting to sudden changes in sleeping patterns. “This has implications for everybody,” says Born. “If you plan your day, including when you want to wake up, you can be better prepared.”