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Welcome! This site is for students to practice their English and keep up to date with environmental issues.

TEN MINUTES OF ENGLISH A DAY!
You can find a mixture of reading, crosswords, videos and short English lessons: these will normally be vocabulary, but I may also treat you to some grammar!

There are now over 260 lessons on this blog. Look through the Blog archive, Post labels and Popular Posts to find what you want.

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''Let nature be your teacher''
William Wordsworth, poet, 1770-1850

''Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift''
Albert Einstein, physicist, 1879-1955

''... to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed''
P.M. Roget, lexicographer, 1779-1869

Monday 22 June 2015

Earth 'entering new extinction phase'

Level: Upper-intermediate B2

Please click the 'Print Friendly' icon at the bottom of the page if you want to print this exercise.

There have been a number of reports recently about extinction of species and a new phase of extinction.

Here is an article about a recent study on the BBC Science & Environment webpage.
Read the article and then answer the following questions:

1) How many mass extinction events have there been so far?
2) When was the last one?
3) True or false: since 1900, more than 40 vertebrate species have disappeared.
4) How many amphibian species are threatened with extinction?
5) How many lemur species are critically endangered?


Answers below!




ANSWERS!
1) Five (we are entering the sixth)
2) 65 million years ago
3) True
4) 41%
5) 94%