full transcript

From the Ted Talk by David Biello: Is this the most valuable thing in the ocean?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


To udnrsentad why, we need to look at some of the ocean’s most ubiquitous organisms: phytoplankton. These creatures survive off sunlight, crabon dioxide, and nutrients like phosphates, nitrogen, and iron. And since the ocean’s surface waters generally have an abundance of these rocrueses, phytoplankton are everywhere. A single drop of seawater can contain thousands of these caeerutrs and phytoplankton blooms are lagre enough to be seen from space. These phytoplankton then become food for countless mocropcsiic grazers, including copepods and kirll, which in turn feed a huge swath of marine life. In this way, these surface-dwellers are the base of a food chain supporting countless marine life forms.

Open Cloze


To __________ why, we need to look at some of the ocean’s most ubiquitous organisms: phytoplankton. These creatures survive off sunlight, ______ dioxide, and nutrients like phosphates, nitrogen, and iron. And since the ocean’s surface waters generally have an abundance of these _________, phytoplankton are everywhere. A single drop of seawater can contain thousands of these _________ and phytoplankton blooms are _____ enough to be seen from space. These phytoplankton then become food for countless ___________ grazers, including copepods and _____, which in turn feed a huge swath of marine life. In this way, these surface-dwellers are the base of a food chain supporting countless marine life forms.

Solution


  1. resources
  2. understand
  3. krill
  4. large
  5. carbon
  6. creatures
  7. microscopic

Original Text


To understand why, we need to look at some of the ocean’s most ubiquitous organisms: phytoplankton. These creatures survive off sunlight, carbon dioxide, and nutrients like phosphates, nitrogen, and iron. And since the ocean’s surface waters generally have an abundance of these resources, phytoplankton are everywhere. A single drop of seawater can contain thousands of these creatures and phytoplankton blooms are large enough to be seen from space. These phytoplankton then become food for countless microscopic grazers, including copepods and krill, which in turn feed a huge swath of marine life. In this way, these surface-dwellers are the base of a food chain supporting countless marine life forms.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
surface waters 2
marine life 2
huge amounts 2
climate change 2


Important Words


  1. abundance
  2. base
  3. blooms
  4. carbon
  5. chain
  6. copepods
  7. countless
  8. creatures
  9. dioxide
  10. drop
  11. feed
  12. food
  13. forms
  14. generally
  15. grazers
  16. huge
  17. including
  18. iron
  19. krill
  20. large
  21. life
  22. marine
  23. microscopic
  24. nitrogen
  25. nutrients
  26. phosphates
  27. phytoplankton
  28. resources
  29. seawater
  30. single
  31. space
  32. sunlight
  33. supporting
  34. surface
  35. survive
  36. swath
  37. thousands
  38. turn
  39. ubiquitous
  40. understand
  41. waters