I. BEFORE YOU READ (Trước khi đọc)

Work in pairs. Ask and answer the following questions.

(Làm việc từng đôi. Hỏi và trả lời các câu hỏi sau.)

1. What do you know about deserts?

2. What kinds of plants and animals live in a desert?

3. Name some of the countries which have deserts

Read the passage and do the tasks that follow.

(Đọc đoạn văn làm bài tập kèm theo.)

Three great stretches of sandy desert almost circle the centre of Australia. To the north of Nullabor Plain stretches the Great Victoria Desert. In the west, the Gibbon, Great Sandy, and Tanami Deserts comprise an enormous sandy area. North of Lake Eyre lies the Simpson Desert, the last part of Australia to be explored.

The Simpson Desert lies between Lake Eyre in the south, the Macdonnel Ranges in the north, the Mulligan and the Diamantina Rivers in the east, and the Macumba and Finke Rivers in the west. The first European entered the Simpson Desert in 1845. But the desert remained a mystery until Madigan made an aerial survey in 1929. He named the desert after Simpson, President of the South Australian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australia.

In 1936, Colson and an Australian Aborigine took camels across the desert. They travelled along the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory. Three years later Madigan led a scientific expedition across the sand dunes on a more northerly route. Colson and Madigan both travelled eastward across the Simpson Desert.

In the Simpson Desert there are different types of dunes. In the western part of the desert, there is a network of short dunes, mostly less than 10 metres high. Hummock grasses grow in loose sand on the crest and spinifex grows in the corridors between dunes and on the more stable slopes.

In the northern part of the desert, the dunes are parallel and separated by corridors of low, open shrubland. Spinifex grows on the slopes of the dunes. These dunes are deep red-brown, but the sand is pale in the area where Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory meet. Dry salt lakes up to 70 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide lie between long dunes with crests 20 metres high.

Task 1: Give the Vietnamese equivalents to the following words or phrases.

(Cho nghĩa tiếng Việt tương đương cho những từ hay cụm từ sau.)

stretch             sandy                aerial survey 

Royal Geograhical Society of Australia

Australian Aborigine

dune           sloping              steep 

 hummock          crest            pinifex 

Task 2: Decide whether the statements are true (T) or false (F).)

(Quyết định xem những câu sau đúng (T) hay sai (F).)

1. According to the passage, there are three great deserts in Australia.

2. The Simpson Desert is the largest one in Australia.

3. The desert was named after Simpson in 1929.  

4. Colson and Madigan travelled across the Simpson Desert in 1936.   

5. There are more dunes in the western part of the desert.

6. Dry salt lakes are in the northern part of the desert.

Task 3: Answer the following questions.

(Trả lời các câu hỏi sau.)

1. What are the names of the three great stretches of sandy desert which circle the centre of Australia?

2. Where is the Simpson Desert?

3. When did the first European enter the desert?

4. Who was Simpson?

5. How did E. A. Colson and an Australian Aborigine travel across the desert?

6. What are the dunes like in the western and northern parts of the desert?

7. How many kinds of grass grow in the Simpson Desert? What are they?

III. AFTER YOU READ (Sau khi đọc)

Read this story and answer the questions that follow.

(Đọc câu chuyện này và trả lời câu hỏi kèm theo.)

At a restaurant, a Vietnamese interpreter was having dinner with an American businessman. It was a delicious dinner and both of them enjoyed it enormously. Before the dinner was over, the interpreter asked the American businessman: “What would you like for your desert?” After a pause, the American businessman answered: “Trees and water”.