Учебное пособие для студентов 3 курса специальности 032301. 65 Регионоведение Чита 2008 (075)
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- Бұл бет үшін навигация:
- Развитие навыков устной речи
- Vocabulary
- Comprehension Check
- Vocabulary Study
- Exercise III. Supply the words or word combinations from the text which correspond to the following
- Exercise IV. Translate from Russian into English.
- THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE UNITED STATES
- The Appalachian Mountains
- merge with the Atlantic Coastal Plain
- Cordillera Mountain System
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Федеральное агентство по образованию Государственное образовательное учреждение высшего профессионального образования «Читинский государственный университет» (ЧитГУ) Е.С. Эмирзиади A PANORAMIC VIEW OF NORTH AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY Развитие навыков устной речи Учебное пособие для студентов 3 курса специальности 032301.65 - Регионоведение Чита - 2008 УДК 802.0(075) ББКж Ш 13 (англ я 7) ББКм 81.2 Англ я 7 Э 553 Эмирзиади Е.С. A Panoramic view of Geography of the USA: учеб. пособие для студентов 3 курса специальности 032301.65 «Регионоведение» / Е.С. Эмирзиади. – Чита: ЧитГУ, 2008. - 138 с. Ил. - 12 Табл. - 1 Библ. 12 наим. В учебном пособии представлены тематические тексты с упражнениями, предназначенные для развития навыков устной речи по теме Физическая и экономическая география США. . Учебное пособие предназначено для студентов третьего курса специальности 032301.65 - «Регионоведение». Учебное пособие разработано Е.С. Эмирзиади, старшим преподавателем кафедры регионоведения Северной Америки Утверждены и рекомендованы решением методического совета ЧитГУ Ответственный за выпуск: зав. кафедрой регионоведения Северной Америки Т.Б.Макарова Рецензенты: 1. к.филол.н., доцент кафедры английского языка ЗабГГПУ им. Н.Г. Чернышевского Н.А. Маркова; 2. к.филол.н., доцент кафедры иностранных языков ГОУ ВПО ЧГМА Ю.Г. Соловьева © Читинский государственный университет, 2008 © Е.С. Эмирзиади, 2008 A TABLE OF CONTENT Geography as a Science..........................………..……….……............. 5 The Face of the Country ......…………………..….……..……….......... 12 The Rivers and Lakes ...........................………....……………….......... 24 The Climate and Weather ............………………………..……............ 34 The Plant and Animal Life ...………………………………….............. 48 The Mineral Wealth ........................………………….………….......... 57 The Population of the United States ..………………..……….............. 62 United States Parks ... Conservation of Beauty ………..…..…..…....... 72 The Main Economic Regions. The Northeast …....……...……............. 81 The Great Lakes and the South .............………………...……......….... 89 The Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains .......................................... 98 The Pacific Region ................................................................................. 112 SUPPLIMENTORY MATERIAL Farming in the United States................................................................. 120 An Industrial Giant ............................................................................... 123 The American People ............................................................................ 125 Final Test ............................................................................................. 127 American Quilt ..................................................................................... 133 Bibliography…………………………………………………............... 137 Предисловие Учебное пособие разработано в соответствии с программными требованиями к обучению навыкам устной речи и принципами лингвострановедения. Цель данной работы – познакомить студентов с физической географией США, природными ресурсами, этносом страны и экономическими особенностями регионов посредством изучения языковых единиц, являющихся носителями страноведческой информации. Студенты должны свободно ориентироваться по физической карте, знать особенности рельефа, климата, почв и воды, а также животного и растительного мира. В этом им поможет учебное пособие, в котором представлены тексты, освещающие основную тематику курса: Physical features of the United States, Climate and Weather, Rivers and Lakes, the Population of the United States, Mineral Wealth and Economic regions of the United States. Также в учебном пособии дается аутентичный аудиоматериал, способствующий развитию навыков аудирования и самостоятельной работе с дополнительным материалом по темам. Фактический материал, содержащийся в каждом тексте, сопровождается упражнениями, направленными на обработку и закрепление лексических единиц, а также на совершенствование навыков устной речи. Упражнения построены на тематическом материале текстов, основанных, в свою очередь, на оригинальных образцах. Учебное пособие предназначено для студентов 3-го курса специальности 032301.65 - Регионоведение, для студентов языковых факультетов вузов, а также для всех тех, кто интересуется вопросами географии США. 
Geography (from Greek geo, “earth”, graphein, “to write”) is the scientific study of the Earth's surface. The surface of the Earth is the interface of atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. It provides the habitat, or environment, in which humans are able to live. This habitable has a number of special characteristics. One of the most important is the complex interaction among many physical, biologic and human elements of the Earth, such as land surface, climate, water, soil, vegetation, agriculture, and urbanization. Another characteristic is the high variability of the environment from place to place - hot tropics to cold polar regions, dry deserts, humid equatorial forests, vast level plains to rugged mountains, and uninhabited ice caps to densely settled metropolitan areas. Yet another is the consistency with which significant patterns occur, which makes possible generalizations about distribution (obvious examples are measurements of temperature and rainfall, which are the most important climatic elements affecting farming and many other human activities). Geography has been called the mother of sciences, evidently because it is one of the oldest subjects of study (the first work to have the word geography as its title appeared in the 3-rd century B. C.) It would be no exaggeration to say that Geography sprang from human curiosity. Human beings are inherently curious. They wonder how other people differ from their own home and folk. The fist recorded knowledge of such differences came in very early history, mainly from the accounts of the travelers. The ancient Greek writer Herodotus was an outstanding early example of one who carefully recorded his personal observation made during many years of extensive travel. Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Jacques Cartier, Amerigo Vespucci - those are only a few of the names of discoverers and explorers whose contribution to the study of the globe can never be overestimated. Though once associated entirely with mapping and the exploration of the Earth, the discipline of Geography is today a wide-ranging one and requires geographers to be conversant with the principles of the biological, social, and earth sciences. Thus, Geography is divided into subdisciplines which can be grouped under three main headings: physical geography, human geography, and regional geography, each of them comprising branches too. The principal branches of physical geography are geomorphology, climatology, biogeography, and soil geography. As human activity has become more able to affect the landscape and ecology of the world, two more branches have emerged: resource management and environmental studies. One of the central problems in human geography is to explain the distribution and characteristics of people - this is the province of population geography. But this distribution can be understood only if attention is paid to how people satisfy their needs and make a living, the field of economic geography; to their cultural ad social values, tools, and organization, which are the fields of cultural and social geography; to their concentrations in cities and metropolitan areas, the object of urban geography; to their political organization, examined by political geography; to their health and to the diseases that affect them, the field of medical geography; and to the evolution of their present patterns, the subject of historical geography. Regional geography studies the distinguishing character of regions which may be surface configuration, ice and snow, vegetation, or type of human activity (pastoral, agricultural, industrial or commercial) and which differs from place to place. High altitudes and steep slopes are the distinctive features of the Himalayas or Andes; forests are the features of the Amazon Basin, Siberia, and northern Canada; dryness and scanty vegetation, of the Sahara, the interior of Australia, and central Asia; highly intensive agriculture, of the rice-producing areas of Monsoonal Asia; commercial agriculture and livestock production, of the American Midwest; ice sheets, of Greenland and Antarctica, etc., etc., etc. Geography utilizes a battery of methods and techniques. Particularly important are direct field observations and mapping. Methods of observation have been enhanced by such means as aerial photography and electronic remote sensing from artificial Earth satellites. Statistical methods help in spatial analysis of quantitative data, particularly census and survey data. Maps, however, remain the distinctive tool for the geographer. The discipline of Geography has many uses. It enables individuals to know the basic features of the world in which they live, the great variety of lands and peoples, the complex associations and interrelations of human beings with resources and nature, and the problems faced by inhabitants of other countries and regions. Geographic research provides explanations of the distribution of physical, biological, and human features on Earth and of their interconnection. Applied geographical analysis has proved useful in managing resources, in understanding problems of the environmental pollution or contamination by discharges of urban, agricultural, and industrial wastes. The analysis of unanticipated environmental effects caused by the construction of large dams and reservoirs has been particularly important. Geographers are engaged in planning land use and housing. They are an important resource in national and international agencies that deal with the study, inventory, development, or administration of natural or human resources. (Based on: Geography. From The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 5 (Macromedia), 1995) Vocabulary interface to spring aerial photography habitat to overestimate remote sensing consistency to enhance spatial analysis conversant to utilize applied analysis interior configuration natural hazards Comprehension Check Exercise I. Scan the text for answers to the following questions:
Vocabulary Study Exercise I. Look up the following words in an English – English dictionary and write out the principal meanings: 1) habitat n; 2) pastoral a; 3) altitude n; 4) slope n; 5) census n; 6) spring v; 7) contamination n. Exercise II. Find in the text the English words and phrases corresponding to the Russian equivalents: 1) переоценивать; 2) хорошо знакомый, сведущий; 3) место распространения; 4) овцеводство; 5) внутренние районы страны; 6) последовательность, постоянство; 7) происходить, возникать; 8) очертания земли; 9) крутые склоны; 10) высоты; 11) аэросъемка; 12) непредвиденные природные явления; 13) пространственный анализ; 14) природные катаклизмы; 15) использовать набор методов; 16) животноводство; 17) скудная растительность. Exercise III. Supply the words or word combinations from the text which correspond to the following: 1) a number of similar articles, items, or devices used together; 2) a plane forming a common boundary between two parts of matter or space; 3) having knowledge or experience; 4) to come into being; 5) to highly judge something with respect to its worth or significance; 6) to make use of something; 7) insufficient amount of plant life or total plant cover; 8) the place or type of site where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives or grows; 9) relating to shepherds or herdsmen and devoted to livestock raising; 10) ground that forms a natural inline characterized by a rapid and intensive increase; 11) to raise, to intensify; 12) a source of danger; 13) a process of polluting; 14) a complete or periodic enumeration of population. Exercise IV. Translate from Russian into English.
The United States of America (the main landmass) is situated in central North America, with Canada to the north, Mexico to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The two newest states, Alaska and Hawaii, are separated from the continental United States: Alaska borders on northwestern Canada, and Hawaii lies in the central Pacific. In 1959 Americans welcomed Alaska (1,5 million square kilometers) into the Union as the 49th state. In 1867 the peninsula was purchased from Russia. The same year (1959) the territory of Hawaii (16,7 thousand square kilometers) was admitted to the Union as the 50th state — a state separated from the mainland by about 3,2 thousand kilometers of the ocean. Americans' encounter with their land has been abrupt and violent, consuming much of the nation's energies. Americans had to confront and to come to terms with a huge, wild country. It has been said that America is a nation with an abundance of geography but a shortage of history. It took less than 400 years to subdue more than 3 million square miles of territory. It was often a painful process and people had to learn geography from hard experience by trial and error. But the geography of the country played into their hands and the land allowed Americans to become self-sufficient in agriculture and basic minerals. The United States occupies a favorable geographical position. The Atlantic Ocean is of great importance for the country's sea communications with Europe, Africa and South America. The sea routes to Asia and Australia pass over the Pacific Ocean. The sea route through the Panama Canal, which connects the two oceans, runs over the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The total area of the United States is about 9.4 million square kilometers, the population — over 260 million people. The United States of America is a country of great contrasts and similarities. The diversity of the country stems from the fact that it is so large and has so many kinds of land, climate and people. It stretches 2,575 kilometers from north to south, 4,500 kilometers from east to west. It is impossible to generalize about the weather, the landscape, or even the way of living because the nation occupies nearly half of a continent. There are high mountains and the flattest of prairies, tropical heat and arctic cold, fertile valleys and desert areas. All sorts of products are grown, there are industries of every kind. The most densely and most sparsely populated areas of the world are to be found in the United States. In some parts of the country the way of life seems to have happened by accident. Each region of the United States has characteristics of its own. There are large and modern cities with millions of people, but a great proportion of the country consists of open land marked with farm-houses and small towns. In some regions small communities are still provincial. In spite of this, however, and in spite of the size of the country, there are striking similarities in the American scene that surprise foreign observers. There is an appearance of the country as a whole that might be said to be typically American. The rural village typical of many countries in Europe and Asia — a collection of houses, close together, occupied by the people who work on the surrounding lands — is almost unknown in 20th-century America. In the United States, instead, each farm family usually lives separately on its own fields, often beyond the sight of its neighbors. The village or town is predominantly a place where the farm family travels to buy supplies, to attend church and to go for entertainment or political, social or business meetings. The usual town of average size, in any part of the United States, has its "main street" with the same types of stores selling the same products. Each town has the same type of drugstore and supermarket. There is some variety of architecture, due to the differences in climate, locality and national background of the people. Yet, many American residential areas, especially new ones, tend to have a similar look. THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE UNITED STATES are also greatly diverse. The majestic Rocky Mountains stretch all the way from Mexico to the Arctic. They divide the country into two parts — the East and the West. The East is occupied by the Appalachian Mountains, the Atlantic Plain, the vast Central Plain and the Plateau of Prairies or the Great Plains. The West is under the powerful Cordillera Mountain System, and the Rockies are part of this system. Close to the Pacific coast, lying between mountain ranges, stretches the California Valley, a narrow strip of lowlands. The mountain ranges of the United States stretch longitudinally and afford no protection against the cold northerly winds. This accounts for the country's climate, which is notably colder than that of Western Europe or North Africa in the same latitudes. The Appalachian Mountains run along the Atlantic coast of the country. They extend from Georgia and Alabama in the United States to parts of eastern Canada near the St. Lawrence River. Compared with the Rockies in the West, they are ancient, strongly destroyed mountains of no great height (2,000 m). They lost much of their height because of the action of glaciers and erosion. Railroad lines run along the river valleys and over the low mountain passes, thus connecting the Atlantic coast with the interior of the country. The eastern slopes of the Appalachians merge with the Atlantic Coastal Plain, which, expanding in the south, adjoins the Gulf Coastal Plain and the lowlands of the Peninsula of Florida. The greatest width of the Appalachian belt in the south is nearly 320 kilometers, and in the north — some 100 kilometers. The Appalachian Mountains consist mainly of the numerous mountain ranges which are nearly parallel with the Atlantic coastline and extend from near the Gulf of Mexico north into Canada. Between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Appalachian Mountains is a wide area of low, rolling hills, called the Piedmont. The Piedmont has fast-flowing rivers and streams. The Piedmont and the coastal plain are divided by a fall line, where rivers drop sharply from the hilly region toward the lowlands near the Atlantic Ocean, forming waterfalls and rapids. Nearly all the Western part of the United States is occupied by the Cordillera Mountain System. The Cordillera Mountains extend from Mexico to Canada and Alaska. In the south they are drained by the Colorado River, in the north — by the Columbia River. It is a region of high plateaus crossed by streams which flow through deep canyons. The Cordillera Mountain System includes a number of lofty ranges or chains and plateaus. The Rocky Mountains form the eastern chain of the Cordilleras. They rank among the greatest of the world mountain ranges. They are high (over 4,000 metres), sharp and rugged. Many peaks, especially those near the state of Colorado, rise over 3,658 meters. The highest peak in the Rocky Mountains is Mount Elbert in Colorado (it rises 4,993 meters above sea level). As compared with the Appalachians, they are young and their peaks are жүктеу/скачать 1.4 Mb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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