Deserts
Before Reading
1. Match the words to the pictures. You can use a dictionary.
¨ Cactus
¨ Camel
¨ Date Palm
¨ Dune
¨ Lizard
¨ Oil
a) b) c)
d) e) f)
2. Look back at the words in exercise 1. Answer the questions.
1. Which of these things have you got in your country?
2. What do you know about these things?
While Reading
1. Read Chapter 1. Are these sentences true (T) or False (F)?
Rewrite the false ones with the correct information.
T/F
¨ A desert has more than 25 centimeters of rain every year.
¨ In 1971, there was some snow in the Atacma Desert.
¨ You can sometimes see snow in the Gobi Desert in winter.
¨ In the Sahara, the temperature can go down to -30C.
¨ The Simpson Desert in Australia is far from the sea.
¨ A lot of the desert in the world has small rocks in it.
¨ More than one third of the world is desert.
Use the space below to rewrite the False (F) sentence(s).
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2. Read Chapter 2, then circle a, b or c.
1. A quarter of the Sahara has got ____on it.
a. ravines
b. mountains
c. sand
2. Rivers in the Mojave Desert make the ____there.
a. Orange sand
b. Small hills
c. Deep ravines
3. The Gobi Desert in China has a lot of ____.
a. trees
b. plants
c. rocks
4. The Namib Desert in Africa is famous for its ____.
a. Tall dunes
b. High mountains
c. Cold wind
5. The ____ can move sand dunes across the desert.
a. rain
b. wind
c. desert people
6. Sometimes you can hear a ____ noise from a sand dune.
a. laughing
b. crying
c. singing
7. The water in an oasis comes from deep _____.
a. rivers
b. ravines
c. dunes
3. Read Chapter 3, then match these halves of the sentences.
a-g
1. Thousands of years ago, the Aborigines began to live … __
2. Traditional Tuareg families live …. __
3. At night, the San people sleep …. __
4. Families in the Thar Desert in India live …. __
5. The people in Coober Pedy in Australia have got homes …. __
6. Tuareg people wear blue scarves … . ___
7. The women of the Thar Desert carry water …. ___
a) over their heads and faces.
b) in small homes of trees and plants.
c) under the desert.
d) in bottles on their heads.
e) in the big, dry deserts of Australia.
f) in houses of sand and grass
g) in huge tents in the deserts.
4. Read Chapter 4, then fill in the gaps with these words.
adapted, eat, goats, oasis, palms, paper, daisy, rains,
rocks, roots, saguaro cactus, seeds, water
All desert plants are _____ to dry weather and they can live without much _____. Many
desert plants have huge _____ -these sometimes go down deep into the ______.
Desert plants like the famous _____ live for a very long time –sometimes 200 years!
But others like the _____ only live for a short time. They leave their _____ in the sand
and only come to life when it _____.
Date____ are important for desert people and you can find them near an _____. People
_____ the dates or give them to their _____ and other animals.
5. Read Chapter then complete the sentences with words from the
list below.
Bactrian, Dromedary, Fennec foxes, Jerboas, Scorpions
1. ________ can jump up to three metres.
2. ________ camels have two humps and live wild in the Gobi.
3. ________ can live for one year without food.
4. ________ have very big ears and white coats.
5. ________ camels have one hump and do not live wild in deserts.
6. Read Chapter 6. Choose the best question- word for these
questions, and then answer them.
How many/ What / Where/ Who/ Why
1. …..do most Bedouins live now?
2. …...is the most important person in a Bedouin tribe?
3. ……do visitors drink when they are with the Bedouins?
4. ……nights can a visitor stay with the Bedouins?
5. ……do the Bedouins drink when they are ill?
6. ……is the twenty-first century difficult for the Bedouins?
7. Read Chapter 7, then rewrite these untrue sentences with the
correct information.
1. Thousands of years ago, nomads looked for rivers in the Sahara.
2. In Mali, people put eight big pieces of salt onto every camel.
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3. People found oil under the Arabian Desert in the 1950’s.
4. A lot of the world’s oil is in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
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5. The huge mine in Chile is 4.5 kilometers wide.
6. People need salt to make bottles and windows.
8. Read Chapter 8, then circle the correct words.
1. Riyadh is much smaller / bigger than Alice Springs.
2. Long ago, Timbuktu was a very rich / poor town.
3. In Timbuktu people changed salt for camels / gold.
4. People used sand / soil to make the buildings in Timbuktu.
5. A lot of people came to study / eat in the city.
6. The Festival in the Desert is a music / book festival.
9. Read Chapter 9. Complete these sentences with the name of one
of these deserts: Atacama, Gobi, Mojave and Sahara.
10. Read Chapter 10, then answer the following questions in full
sentences.
1. What is the word for when deserts grow bigger?
2. Where is the new desert in Europe?
3. Where does the wind blow the sand from the Gobi Desert?
4. What are people doing to stop desertification in China?
5. What is dune bashing?
6. Where do people run in the 4 Deserts Race?
7. What are people beginning to grow in some deserts?
After Reading
1. Complete the Crossword.
2. Complete these two postcards using the words below.
backs, camels, city, colours, homes, mine, rich, rock, salt, sand soil,
temperature, under, University, unusual, wind
3. You are going on a visit to a desert. Answer these questions, and
then discuss your answers with a partner.
1. Which desert in the world are you going to visit? Why?
2. What things are you going to take with you?
3. How are you going to travel?
4. Where you going to sleep at night?
5. What are you going to see and do?
4. Read Chapter 9 again. Copy the table and make notes about the
different deserts.
Sahara Gobi Mojave Atacama
Size 9,000,000
square km.
Location North Africa.
Name Comes from
Arabic word for
‘desert’.
Desert Type Tuaregs and
Bedouins.
Landscape Rocks and sand.
Interesting It had the
Fact world’s hottest
temperature.
