Ready for CAE p 18. Listening Vocabulary

READY FOR CAE LISTENING p.18 TIME CAPSULES (track 1.4)

You will hear part of a talk on the subject of time capsules.

What do you think a time capsule might be?

The speaker talks about his great passion in life: time capsules. He explains how a time capsule is a container filled with typical objects from a particular time and in most cases (1)__________/____________ for safekeeping. The idea behind this is that future generations will be able to learn about life in the past when they open up the capsule and study the objects.

The origins of the idea of storing objects for posterity in this manner go back over a century to the (2)__________/__________. The problem was, and still is to some extent, that most of these capsules have been lost to history. The speaker gives different reasons for time capsules going missing, but he emphasises that the most usual explanation is because no one has bothered to (3)______/_________/_________and we don't know for sure where the capsules are.

He gives us an example by telling us how people buried seventeen of them back in the Thirties in California in a place called Corona and how not one of them has ever been found. He proceeds with another example: in 1983, some of the cast of the popular television programme M*A*S*H put costumes and (4)___________ from the show in a capsule and buried it in a secret ceremony, refusing to tell anyone not connected with the show where exactly they had put it. All they would say was that it was somewhere in the 20th Century Film Studios car park in Hollywood. Eventually, a huge hotel was built on the site and today no one knows where (5) _____/________ to look for it.

However, he continues, the modern-day passion for time capsules really began in the late nineteen thirties when the President of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Dr Thornwell Jacobs, was doing some research into ancient civilizations. He was so frustrated by the (6) ______/______ accurate information that he came up with a plan to ensure that the same thing wouldn't happen to future generations. He built his own time capsule, the 'Crypt of Civilization', in an area the size of a swimming pool, in the (7)__________ of one of the university buildings, Hearst Hall. The capsule is still there at the present moment, but nobody is allowed to see any of the contents since the (8) _____________ won't be opened for another 6,000 year

Among its many serious and varied objects, such as newsreels, important radio speeches, scientific instruments and a great deal of material on microfilm, the time capsule also contains literally thousands of everyday objects like cooking utensils, ornaments and tools. The speaker believes Dr Jacob to have been a very sensible person for not including in the capsule any (9)______/________/_________/__________ , since it might have attracted robbers. But he did include models of necklaces and earrings, as well as papier maché fruit and vegetables and even a small capsule of (10) __________. Since then, all sorts of people have put all sorts of objects into time capsules.

 

KEY

1. buried underground
2. nineteen hundreds
3. keep proper records
4. props
5. on earth
6. lack of
7. basement
8. crypt
9. real items of jewellery
10. beer

Vocabulary
For safekeeping: protection from harm, damage or loss.

To keep proper records:

•proper: suitable for this purpose or situation.
•records: information kept about something that has happened.
Props: a piece of furniture or small object used in a play or film. Atrezzo.

Basement: the part of a building that is partly or completely below the level of the ground.

Newsreels: a news report on film that was shown in cinemas in the past.

Papier-mâché /ˌpæpieɪ ˈmæʃeɪ/(French for 'chewed-up paper' due to its appearance), sometimes called paper-mâché, is a construction material that consists of pieces of paper, sometimes reinforced with textiles, stuck together using a wet paste (e.g., glue). The crafted object becomes solid when the paste dries