ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving.

Last updated at 15:20 BST, Wednesday, 04 April 2012

Standing tall

Video

Report and vocabulary

transcript

A bird's eye view of London.

The final piece of steel in a building nicknamed the Shard has been put in place. When completed, it will be the European Union's tallest skyscraper.

But the work isn't for the faint-hearted. The structure reaches 310 metres.

With 87 storeys, the building will house residences, offices, a hotel and viewing gallery.

a bird's eye view

a view from a high place from which you can see a vast area

nicknamed

a name used informally instead of a real name

faint-hearted

timid, not confident

storeys

floors

(to) house (verb)

to accommodate

Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ news reports.

Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

a bird's eye view / nicknamed / faint-hearted / storeys / (to) house (verb)


1.

Tickling a gorilla is not for the _________. But keeper Phil Ridges is not worried at getting into the enclosure with Emmie at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent.

2.

Spain's relatively new army museum is _______ in the spectacular Alcazar in Toledo. Once a fortress, it was largely destroyed in a famous siege during the Spanish Civil War, before being rebuilt by Franco.

3.

A ewe thought to have been a contender for the title of world's oldest sheep has died after falling off a cliff. An ear tag on the blackface ewe, _________ Methuselina, showed that it was 25 years and 11 months old.

4.

Visitors will be guided through nine exhibitions, spread over four ________, charting the history of the Titanic from its construction in the nearby Harland & Wolff shipyard to its final resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic.

5.

A large platform has been carved out of the side of the hill above the mine that will offer _________ of the rescue operations.

Downloads

To take away:

Exercise

Answers

How did you do?

1

faint-hearted

2

housed

3

nicknamed

4

storeys

5

a bird's eye view

Local Navigation