(Page 48)
1. Read part 1 of the text. What is a shooting star?
Part 1
On a clear night, you can often see meteors – space rocks- as they fall towards the Earth. Each rock is smaller than an apple, but they look as bright as stars in the night sky, so people call them 'shooting stars'. Larger meteors are much rarer, but their effects are far more spectacular.
In 2013, a meteor exploded in the sky above the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia. The explosion was more powerful than the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bomb, but its effect was not as devastating as the bomb because the meteor exploded much further from the ground. Scientists compared the Chelyabinsk meteor to an earlier – and far bigger – explosion: the Tunguska Event.
2. Complete the table with comparative adjectives from part 1 of the text.
| Short adjective | Comparative | Rule |
| small | (1) ___________ | + -er |
| large | (2) ___________ | + -r |
| early | (3) ___________ | -y → -ier |
| big | (4) ___________ | double consonant + -er |
| Long adjective | Comparative | Rule |
| powerful | (5) ___________ | more + adjective |
| Irregular adjective | Comparative | |
| far | (6) ___________ | (no rules) |
| good | better | |
| bad | worse |
3. Read the Learn this! box. Then find examples of each rule (a–d) in part 1 of the text.
LEARN THIS! Comparative formsa. We use than to make comparisons. Greece is hotter than the UK. b. We use not as ... as to make negative comparisons. It isn't as warm as yesterday. c. We use as ... as to say two things are equal. Yesterday, London was as hot as Athens. d. We use far or much to make a comparison stronger. Libya is far/ much hotter than Canada. |
4. PRONUNCIATION ☊2.03 Listen to the examples. What do you notice about the pronunciation of than and as? Practise saying the sentence.
5. Read the Look out! box. Complete part 2 of the text with the comparative form of the words in brackets.
| ⇒ Grammar Builder 4B Comparison: page 114 |
LOOK OUT! little – lessSome quantifiers also have comparative forms. few – fewer much/many – more |
Part 2
The Tunguska Event of 1908 was (1) _____ (far) from a city so (2) _____ (few) people saw it, but it was much (3) _____ (powerful) than the one in Chelyabinsk. It destroyed more than 80 million trees in the Siberian forest, so it's lucky it was not (4) _____ (close) to a town or city. The night sky became (5) _____ (bright) than normal for a few days, and people a hundred kilometres away could read a newspaper outdoors even at midnight.
Most scientists believe it was a meteor explosion, but there are some (6) _____ (unusual) theories too. Perhaps it was a UFO!
6. SPEAKING Work in pair. Ask and answer questions beginning Which ... ? Use the comparative form of the adjectives.
1. dangerous / a blizzard / a thunderstorm /?
Which is more dangerous, a blizzard or a thunderstorm?
2. beautiful / snowflake / rainbow /?
3. holiday venue / good / the mountains / the beach /?
4. city / have / many seasons / Ha Noi / Ho Chi Minh City /?
5. for you personally / temperature / bad / -5°C / 35°C /?
6. Ha Noi / month / hot/ June / August /?
