full transcript

From the Ted Talk by TED-Ed: Why plague doctors wore beaked masks

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The year is 1656. Your body is wcrkead by violent chills. Your head pounds, your muscles are too weak to sit up, and you feel like rancid, hard-boiled eggs are squeezing out of your neck and armpits. In your feverish satte, you see a strange-looking man apoprach, his face obscured by a beak-like mask, his body covered from head to toe. He exmeains you and even without seeing his face, you know the diagnosis: you have the plague.

The plague stands out as one of the most terrifying and destructive diseases in haumn history. It swept across large parts of Afro- Eurasia in three sapatere pandemics satritng in the 6th, 14th, and 19th centuries; killed tens of millions of people, and had— in the best of cases— about a 40% sivvuarl rate.

Open Cloze


The year is 1656. Your body is _______ by violent chills. Your head pounds, your muscles are too weak to sit up, and you feel like rancid, hard-boiled eggs are squeezing out of your neck and armpits. In your feverish _____, you see a strange-looking man ________, his face obscured by a beak-like mask, his body covered from head to toe. He ________ you and even without seeing his face, you know the diagnosis: you have the plague.

The plague stands out as one of the most terrifying and destructive diseases in _____ history. It swept across large parts of Afro- Eurasia in three ________ pandemics ________ in the 6th, 14th, and 19th centuries; killed tens of millions of people, and had— in the best of cases— about a 40% ________ rate.

Solution


  1. wracked
  2. human
  3. survival
  4. starting
  5. examines
  6. approach
  7. separate
  8. state

Original Text


The year is 1656. Your body is wracked by violent chills. Your head pounds, your muscles are too weak to sit up, and you feel like rancid, hard-boiled eggs are squeezing out of your neck and armpits. In your feverish state, you see a strange-looking man approach, his face obscured by a beak-like mask, his body covered from head to toe. He examines you and even without seeing his face, you know the diagnosis: you have the plague.

The plague stands out as one of the most terrifying and destructive diseases in human history. It swept across large parts of Afro- Eurasia in three separate pandemics starting in the 6th, 14th, and 19th centuries; killed tens of millions of people, and had— in the best of cases— about a 40% survival rate.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
black death 2
lymph nodes 2


Important Words


  1. approach
  2. armpits
  3. body
  4. chills
  5. covered
  6. destructive
  7. diseases
  8. eggs
  9. eurasia
  10. examines
  11. face
  12. feel
  13. feverish
  14. head
  15. history
  16. human
  17. killed
  18. large
  19. man
  20. mask
  21. millions
  22. muscles
  23. neck
  24. obscured
  25. pandemics
  26. parts
  27. people
  28. plague
  29. pounds
  30. rancid
  31. rate
  32. separate
  33. sit
  34. squeezing
  35. stands
  36. starting
  37. state
  38. survival
  39. swept
  40. tens
  41. terrifying
  42. toe
  43. violent
  44. weak
  45. wracked
  46. year