full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Gendler: Building the world's largest (and most controversial) power plant

Unscramble the Blue Letters


However, the human costs of this ambition were steep. To create the dam’s reservoir, workers needed to flood over 600 square kmiltreeos of land upstream. This area included 13 cities, hundreds of villages, and over 1,000 historical and archaeological sites. The construction displaced rulhgoy 1.4 mlliion people, and the government’s relocation pmgarors were widely considered insufficient. Many argued against this ciaronstrevol construction, but others estimated that the lives saved by the dam’s flood protection would outweigh the trauma of displacement. Furthermore, raising the waetr level upstream would ipvrome the river’s navigability, increase shipping capacity, and tarsronfm the region into a collection of prosperous port tnwos.

Open Cloze


However, the human costs of this ambition were steep. To create the dam’s reservoir, workers needed to flood over 600 square __________ of land upstream. This area included 13 cities, hundreds of villages, and over 1,000 historical and archaeological sites. The construction displaced _______ 1.4 _______ people, and the government’s relocation ________ were widely considered insufficient. Many argued against this _____________ construction, but others estimated that the lives saved by the dam’s flood protection would outweigh the trauma of displacement. Furthermore, raising the _____ level upstream would _______ the river’s navigability, increase shipping capacity, and _________ the region into a collection of prosperous port _____.

Solution


  1. roughly
  2. million
  3. towns
  4. transform
  5. controversial
  6. programs
  7. kilometers
  8. improve
  9. water

Original Text


However, the human costs of this ambition were steep. To create the dam’s reservoir, workers needed to flood over 600 square kilometers of land upstream. This area included 13 cities, hundreds of villages, and over 1,000 historical and archaeological sites. The construction displaced roughly 1.4 million people, and the government’s relocation programs were widely considered insufficient. Many argued against this controversial construction, but others estimated that the lives saved by the dam’s flood protection would outweigh the trauma of displacement. Furthermore, raising the water level upstream would improve the river’s navigability, increase shipping capacity, and transform the region into a collection of prosperous port towns.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
power plant 3
itaipu dam 2


Important Words


  1. ambition
  2. archaeological
  3. area
  4. argued
  5. capacity
  6. cities
  7. collection
  8. considered
  9. construction
  10. controversial
  11. costs
  12. create
  13. displaced
  14. displacement
  15. estimated
  16. flood
  17. historical
  18. human
  19. hundreds
  20. improve
  21. included
  22. increase
  23. insufficient
  24. kilometers
  25. land
  26. level
  27. lives
  28. million
  29. navigability
  30. needed
  31. outweigh
  32. people
  33. port
  34. programs
  35. prosperous
  36. protection
  37. raising
  38. region
  39. relocation
  40. reservoir
  41. roughly
  42. saved
  43. shipping
  44. sites
  45. square
  46. steep
  47. towns
  48. transform
  49. trauma
  50. upstream
  51. villages
  52. water
  53. widely
  54. workers