II. Answer the questions:

1. What was the greatest achievement of the Romans?

2. Why did old English roads become unsuitable for fast modern traffic?

3. What is characteristic of fast highways of the modern world?

4. Why is much excavation needed for road construction nowadays?

5. What are the problems that excavation should solve?

6. Why should a civil engineer be an expert in geology and soil mechanics?

7. What are the differencies and similarities of roads and airfields construction?

8. Why are airfield sites usually chosen on level ground?

9. Why is the project of Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong unique?

III. Form the Nouns from the given verbs from the text and translate them:

Consolidate, develop, promote, penetrate, excavate, locate, involve, require, move, differ, know, pave, provide, determine, adopt, settle.

IV. Compete the sentences according to the text:

1. Roads are built in order to...............................

2. The roads of America now have no names, but..................................

3. In the old days, the roads used to be...............................

4. Nowadays they..............................

5. Powerful machines can.....................

6. Much excavation and fill is necessary if...................

7. The dimensions of a runway are usually.................................

8. The problems of the Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong were determined by.............................

9. A special feature of this airport is................................

V. Choose the correct phrase in the Passive to complete the statement:

1. The making of roads today a) must be made level over an area considerably

2. Many hills and mountains wider than its runways.

3. Many mountain roads b) is almost completely mechanized.

4. In excavation different conditions of site and climate c) should be considered.

5. The granite from the side of an icebound mountain d) are penetrated by highways.

6. Each excavation project e) is to be blasted.

7. An airfield f) are planned to climb steeply and wind sharply to avoid

the enormous amount of excavation g) must be dealt with considering its advantages.

VII. Match the machines to the typical job they do.

1. Bulldozers

2. Tankers

3. Huge rubber-tired compactors

4. "Big cats"(diesel engines)

5. Excavation machines

6. Graders

7. Rubber-tired tractors and scrapers

8. Sheepsfoot rollers

9. Crawler tractors

a) cut a narrow "bench" or shelf in the mountain.

b) follow bulldozers and widen the shelf to the full width.

c) excavate shale and sandstone out of a huge cutting throug a hill.

d) dig up the ripped material.

e) push dumpers while they're loading for the earth causes the tires of the big vehicles to spin.

f) hauled by crawler tractors, do the initial compaction or packing down.

g) turn the material over and spread it out.

h) sprinkle water on the material.

i) circle in pass after pass after the material is packed hard, reaching the specified 90% density.