Unit 3a Book

1. Introduction

Unit 3a deals with ways reporters describe events, depending on how recent the events are and what detail is provided in the report. In addition, you will see how you can speculate about the imaginary future using the second conditional. All this language is presented within a context of space and spacecraft, which will give you an opportunity to see how technology has advanced in this area since the coursebook was published.

Contents:

• The Present Perfect tense for talking about recent or unfinished events:

The Ares rocket has crashed.

• The Past Simple tense for providing details about events happening at specified time in the past:

The Ares rocket crashed early this morning.

• The first conditional for real or possible situations:

If an aircraft fails, the pilot will activate the ejection system.

• The second conditional for impossible or imaginary situations:

If a spacecraft failed, the computer would activate the launch abort system.

2. Warm-up: Forum

The context of Unit 3a is space, aka the Universe. Space is something that is everywhere around us, but at the current stage of human knowledge, there are more questions than facts we know about the Universe for sure. And this is no surprise. The Universe is so large that it may be impossible for humans to investigate it fully and to discover its fundamental principles. How about you? Would you like to get on a rocket and go to space? (Or did you wish to do that when you were a child?) What do you think you would discover? Do you think humans are alone in space? Or do we have a chance to meet an extraterrestrial life? Are events happening in space arbitrary or is there a fundamental principle that is just followed? And finally, when in space, how do rockets return to the Earth? Answer at least two of these questions and respond to at least one contribution of a fellow student in this forum.

3. Listening: The Launch Abort System

Listen to recording 07 on the CD that comes with your book (Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman). As you listen, do this gap-fill task. Alternatively, you can read the transcript on p. 119. The completed gaps will then serve as an overview of two English verb tenses: The Present Perfect tense and the Past Simple tense.

4. Grammar: The Present Perfect Tense vs. The Past Simple Tense

After completing the listening task above, you should have an idea of the main differences between the Present Perfect tense and the Past Simple tense. You learned about the Past Simple tense in Unit 1a, so if you think you need to revise this material, go back to the first unit of this course.

Now, let´s focus on the Present Perfect Simple tense. Students have hardly ever problems with the form of this tense:

Subject + auxiliary have/has + past participle of the main verb:

A) regular past participle: -ed,

B) irregular past participle: the “third” form

However, what causes frequent problems is the use of this tense. Remember that it is used for:

• actions that happened (and were completed) at an unspecified past time:

She has visited Prague (once). Have you fixed the machine? – I have tried, but the quick fix does not work.

• repeated completed actions that happened at unspecified past times (before the present): She has visited Prague many times (over the past few years).
• actions that started in the past and are still continuing:

This is the best book I have ever read. She has studied English for six years. (Present Perfect Continuous often used for this situation: She has been studying English for six years).

And how does the use of the Present Perfect Simple tense differ from the use of the Past Simple tense? Study the following table:

To see a more detailed explanation and more illustrative examples, read this grammar overview. Then practise these two tenses first in the context of space flights and then in the context of IT.

5. Conditional Clauses: The Invention of the LAS

In the previous section, you learned about the Launch Abort System (LAS), which, after being activated, saved the astronauts´ lives. Now imagine you can travel in time and now you are several years back in the past. In 2010, a scientist spoke about the invention of the LAS system when commenting on the two slides in Task 6 on p. 21 in your coursebook. The slide on the left shows an existing safety system for aircraft, while the system on the right-hand side, called a LAS system for spacecraft, did not yet exist in 2010. Listen to the lecture given on both these systems (Recording 08 that comes with your coursebook) and complete this overview. Alternatively, you can read the transcript on p. 119 in your book.

Here are similar examples of conditional clauses from the previous task. Compare them:

We use the first conditional when the situation is real or possible:

If an aircraft fails, the pilot will activate the ejection system.

If + subject + Present Simple, subject + Future tense

subordinate clause , main clause

You can also change the order of sentences, but you will not need a comma then:

The pilot will activate the ejection system if an aircraft fails.

We use the second conditional when the situation is imagined or impossible:

If a spacecraft failed, the computer would activate the LAS system.

If + subject + Past Simple, subject + would + bare infinitive

subordinate clause, main clause

You can also change the order of sentences, but you will not need a comma then:

The computer would activate the LAS system if a spacecraft failed.

Three important notes:

• In the first conditional, there is never the Future Tense in the if-clause. The Present Tense is used instead.
• In the second conditional, there is never “would” in the if-clause. The Past Tense is used instead.
• If you compare the two types of conditional sentences, you will see that the second conditional is similar to the first conditional, but the tenses are shifted one time level to the past.

To find out more about conditional clauses, study this overview of basic conditional clauses. Now, it is time to practise this new grammar point. Do it first in general English context by completing these tasks:  A, B, C, D. Then practise the same grammar point in technical English contexts by completing tasks E, F from your book.

6. Forum 2: What would you do if…?

This forum will give you an opportunity to practise the second conditional. Think about the questions in this forum and answer at least two them. Give reasons for your answers. In addition, respond to at least one contribution of one of your fellow students by commenting on, or agreeing or disagreeing with their contributions. If you disagree, explain why and give your opinion.

7. Specialist Listening and Reading

The space industry is one of the domains that illustrate the huge technological advancement humankind has made. Nowadays, not all rockets land in the way described in Unit 3 in your book. No, I am not talking about space shuttles that land like planes. What I mean is the Falcon 9 project of the SpaceX corporation. Although the technology is not yet without problems, the Falcon rocket has managed several vertical landings, thus copying the launch, but in the opposite direction. The rocket can then be reused, saving sums of money. What is more, the rocket is capable of landing at sea, as you can see in the video

Watch the video and complete this listening comprehension task.

The aviation and space industries are not the only areas in which automatic systems are triggered in an emergency. A common safety system is, for example, an airbag. Read about airbags in this reading comprehension task.

8. Word list

The key terms related to the topic of Unit 3a can be found:

• in the Excel format here.
• in the interactive flash card format here. This format is particularly good for drilling the new vocabulary.
• in a zip file here. This file is downloadable, so that after unpacking it, you can drill the new vocabulary on your desktop, laptop or any other portable device where you have a browser installed. The recommended one is Mozilla Firefox. Important: after unzipping the zip file, make sure to keep all the related files in the same directory at all times. Do not change any file names and do not transfer or delete anything.

Recommendation: Remember that the best way to learn new vocabulary is to see each new word in a context; that is, seeing it in the contexts provided in the tasks you complete in the unit.

9. A printer-friendly version of Unit 3a

A printer-friendly version of Unit 3a exercises and the keys to these exercises can be found here.