五百基础词汇的使用和练习（37）

"Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words
Since I first call'd my brother's father dad."
Shakespeare, King John

Words to Learn This Week

heir
majestic
dwindle
surplus
traitor
deliberate
vandal
drought
abide
unify
summit
heed


Read the following story to see how the new words are used in it.

Listen to Smokey the Bear

At one time the United States was heir to great riches, for more than half of our country was covered with forests. Now the majestic woodlands have dwindled to the point where we have no surplus of trees. Of course, only a traitor to the beauties of nature would deliberately set a forest fire, but careless citizens are the vandals who are responsible for much of the destruction. In time of drought especially, scorching fires started by careless smokers can reduce a beautiful forest to acres of blackened stumps.

Theodore Roosevelt understood that we cannot abide the continual loss of our precious forests but we must learn 10 live in harmony with nature. In 1905, he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the Forest Service which promptly began to unify efforts in caring for our national forests. The modern forest rangers, from the "lockouts" stationed on mountain summits to the "smokejumpers" who parachute from airplanes to fight fires, ask us to heed the advice of Smoky the Bear, who has become their symbol. Smoky says, "Only you can prevent forest fires."


Place one of the new words in each of the blanks below.

01. The exhausted regimen ___________ down to a few troops.

02. Secret documents listed the ____________ to the large fortune.

03. Iris made a ___________ attempt to ignore their biting comments.

04. The __________ of waste materials has polluted our rivers.

05. Charles blundered off in the wrong direction without _________ my warning cries.

06. Lincoln tried in vain to keep the North and South ____________ .

07. It did not take long before the unruly crowd turned into a mob of howling ______________ .

08. The confirmed bachelor could not ___________ having anyone touch a single utensil in his home.

09. If the __________ does not end soon. I can predict a famine.

10. The population rise will reach its __________ in a few years and then it will level off.

11. Lt. Jenkins lost every morsel of self-respect and became a ____________ to his flag.

12. The loyal captain. __________ in defeat, won the sympathy of the people.