full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Daniel Sperling and Gil Tal: The surprisingly long history of electric cars

Unscramble the Blue Letters


If you were buying a car in 1899, you would’ve had three major options to choose from. You could buy a steam-powered car. Typically rlniyeg on gas-powered beolirs, these could drive as far as you wanted— provided you also wanted to lug around extra water to refuel and didn’t mind waiting 30 mneuits for your engine to heat up. Alternatively, you could buy a car powered by gasoline. However, the internal combustion engines in these models required dangerous hand-cranking to satrt and etmetid loud noises and foul-smelling exhaust while driving. So your best bet was probably option number three: a battery-powered electric vehicle. These cars were quick to start, clean and qeuit to run, and if you lived somewhere with access to ecritleitcy, easy to refuel oiervghnt.

Open Cloze


If you were buying a car in 1899, you would’ve had three major options to choose from. You could buy a steam-powered car. Typically _______ on gas-powered _______, these could drive as far as you wanted— provided you also wanted to lug around extra water to refuel and didn’t mind waiting 30 _______ for your engine to heat up. Alternatively, you could buy a car powered by gasoline. However, the internal combustion engines in these models required dangerous hand-cranking to _____ and _______ loud noises and foul-smelling exhaust while driving. So your best bet was probably option number three: a battery-powered electric vehicle. These cars were quick to start, clean and _____ to run, and if you lived somewhere with access to ___________, easy to refuel _________.

Solution


  1. emitted
  2. overnight
  3. minutes
  4. boilers
  5. quiet
  6. relying
  7. electricity
  8. start

Original Text


If you were buying a car in 1899, you would’ve had three major options to choose from. You could buy a steam-powered car. Typically relying on gas-powered boilers, these could drive as far as you wanted— provided you also wanted to lug around extra water to refuel and didn’t mind waiting 30 minutes for your engine to heat up. Alternatively, you could buy a car powered by gasoline. However, the internal combustion engines in these models required dangerous hand-cranking to start and emitted loud noises and foul-smelling exhaust while driving. So your best bet was probably option number three: a battery-powered electric vehicle. These cars were quick to start, clean and quiet to run, and if you lived somewhere with access to electricity, easy to refuel overnight.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
electric vehicles 6
internal combustion 4
combustion engines 4
electric cars 3
electric vehicle 2
nickel metal 2
metal hydride 2
hydride batteries 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
internal combustion engines 4
nickel metal hydride 2
metal hydride batteries 2

Important Words


  1. access
  2. alternatively
  3. bet
  4. boilers
  5. buy
  6. buying
  7. car
  8. cars
  9. choose
  10. clean
  11. combustion
  12. dangerous
  13. drive
  14. driving
  15. easy
  16. electric
  17. electricity
  18. emitted
  19. engine
  20. engines
  21. exhaust
  22. extra
  23. gasoline
  24. heat
  25. internal
  26. lived
  27. loud
  28. lug
  29. major
  30. mind
  31. minutes
  32. models
  33. noises
  34. number
  35. option
  36. options
  37. overnight
  38. powered
  39. quick
  40. quiet
  41. refuel
  42. relying
  43. required
  44. run
  45. start
  46. typically
  47. vehicle
  48. waiting
  49. wanted
  50. water