1. Answer the questions.

1) What is the main tendency in using excavators?

2) Are the excavators self propelled machines?

3) What attachments can be used to equip the universal excavator?

4) Why are the backhoes with telescopic booms very widely used now?

5) Can hydraulically operated excavators dig trenches with vertical sides on sloping ground?

6) Why is it profitable to change the angle of cutting in the process of digging?

7) Are hydraulically operated excavators more progressive then the rope-operated ones?

2. Read the plan of the text. Does it correspond to it? If no, give your own plan.

a) The history of excavators design.

b)The description of a bulldozer.

c) How does the excavator work?

d) What is a scraper?

e) First stages in construction work.

f) Parts of a universal excavator.

g) Four classes of machines for excavation.

3. To which of the incomplete sentences does the following phrases refer?

1. ……………………………………one must use earth-moving equipment.

1. As the years went on…

b) To carry out this work…

c) During the last fifty years…

1. ……………………………………….can be divided into four classes.

1. Machines, which plane off a thin layer of soil…

b) Plant for site preparation and excavation…

4. Use a dictionary to complete the chart below and mark the stressed syllable in each word of more than one syllable.

ADJECTIVES PARTICIPLES	NOUNS	VERBS
Digging	digger	to dig
		to widen
	movement	to move
obtainable
special
sloping
excavating
	bucket
wheeled
	discharge

5. Write down the main technical characteristics of any excavator or another construction machine according to the above table of Plasser and Theurer machines. Think of such factors as age, make and capacity.

6. Have some fun. J

Continue the sentence. My father is the sort of person who calls a spade a spade. This means he ……
says exactly what he thinks likes digging likes gardening operates an excavator

Test 14

I. Match the terms with their definitions.

1. To plane off	a. to remove smth with a tool, consisting of a blade set in a flat surface which makes the surface of wood smooth
2. shovel	b. a surface of which one end or side is higher than the other
3. slope	c. a tool like a spade with curved edges, used for moving earth, snow, sand
4. digging	d. using a spade, a machine, etc. to break up and move earth