full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Congrui Jin: What if cracks in concrete could fix themselves?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

While people have been using a variety of recipes to produce cement for over 4,000 years, concrete itself has a surprisingly short lifespan. After 20 to 30 yares, natural processes like concrete shrinkage, excessive freezing and thawing, and heavy loads can trigger cricakng. And it’s not just big breaks that count: tiny cracks can be just as dangerous. Concrete is often used as a secondary support around setel reinforcements. In this concrete, even small cracks can channel weatr, oeygxn, and carbon dioxide that corrode the steel and lead to disastrous collapse. On structures like bgiedrs and highways that are constantly in use, detecting these pblermos before they lead to catastrophe becomes a huge and costly challenge. But not doing so would also edgaennr thousands of lives.

Open Cloze

While people have been using a variety of recipes to produce cement for over 4,000 years, concrete itself has a surprisingly short lifespan. After 20 to 30 _____, natural processes like concrete shrinkage, excessive freezing and thawing, and heavy loads can trigger ________. And it’s not just big breaks that count: tiny cracks can be just as dangerous. Concrete is often used as a secondary support around _____ reinforcements. In this concrete, even small cracks can channel _____, ______, and carbon dioxide that corrode the steel and lead to disastrous collapse. On structures like _______ and highways that are constantly in use, detecting these ________ before they lead to catastrophe becomes a huge and costly challenge. But not doing so would also ________ thousands of lives.

Solution

  1. endanger
  2. steel
  3. years
  4. bridges
  5. problems
  6. water
  7. oxygen
  8. cracking

Original Text

While people have been using a variety of recipes to produce cement for over 4,000 years, concrete itself has a surprisingly short lifespan. After 20 to 30 years, natural processes like concrete shrinkage, excessive freezing and thawing, and heavy loads can trigger cracking. And it’s not just big breaks that count: tiny cracks can be just as dangerous. Concrete is often used as a secondary support around steel reinforcements. In this concrete, even small cracks can channel water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide that corrode the steel and lead to disastrous collapse. On structures like bridges and highways that are constantly in use, detecting these problems before they lead to catastrophe becomes a huge and costly challenge. But not doing so would also endanger thousands of lives.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
calcium carbonate 3
carbon dioxide 2
gradually fill 2

Important Words

  1. big
  2. breaks
  3. bridges
  4. carbon
  5. catastrophe
  6. cement
  7. challenge
  8. channel
  9. collapse
  10. concrete
  11. constantly
  12. corrode
  13. costly
  14. cracking
  15. cracks
  16. dangerous
  17. detecting
  18. dioxide
  19. disastrous
  20. endanger
  21. excessive
  22. freezing
  23. heavy
  24. highways
  25. huge
  26. lead
  27. lifespan
  28. lives
  29. loads
  30. natural
  31. oxygen
  32. people
  33. problems
  34. processes
  35. produce
  36. recipes
  37. reinforcements
  38. secondary
  39. short
  40. shrinkage
  41. small
  42. steel
  43. structures
  44. support
  45. surprisingly
  46. thawing
  47. thousands
  48. tiny
  49. trigger
  50. variety
  51. water
  52. years