full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Alex Gendler: How the world's longest underwater tunnel was built
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Early surveys of the French coast revealed the site was full of fault lines. These small cracks let water seep into the rock, so engineers had to develop wtropoaref biorng machines. The bstriih anticipated drier conditions, and forged ahead with regular borers. But only mntohs into the work, water flooded in through undetected fissures. To drill in this wet chlak, the British had to use grout to seal the ckacrs craeetd in the borer’s wake, and even work ahead of the main borer to reinforce the chalk about to be drilled.
Open Cloze
Early surveys of the French coast revealed the site was full of fault lines. These small cracks let water seep into the rock, so engineers had to develop __________ ______ machines. The _______ anticipated drier conditions, and forged ahead with regular borers. But only ______ into the work, water flooded in through undetected fissures. To drill in this wet _____, the British had to use grout to seal the ______ _______ in the borer’s wake, and even work ahead of the main borer to reinforce the chalk about to be drilled.
Solution
- british
- boring
- waterproof
- created
- cracks
- chalk
- months
Original Text
Early surveys of the French coast revealed the site was full of fault lines. These small cracks let water seep into the rock, so engineers had to develop waterproof boring machines. The British anticipated drier conditions, and forged ahead with regular borers. But only months into the work, water flooded in through undetected fissures. To drill in this wet chalk, the British had to use grout to seal the cracks created in the borer’s wake, and even work ahead of the main borer to reinforce the chalk about to be drilled.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
boring machines |
2 |
Important Words
- anticipated
- borer
- borers
- boring
- british
- chalk
- coast
- conditions
- cracks
- created
- develop
- drier
- drill
- drilled
- early
- engineers
- fault
- fissures
- flooded
- forged
- french
- full
- grout
- lines
- machines
- main
- months
- regular
- reinforce
- revealed
- rock
- seal
- seep
- site
- small
- surveys
- undetected
- wake
- water
- waterproof
- wet
- work