A: what book is that?
B: I just bought a new atlas1. I’m looking this map of the world. Look at Russia! That’s a vast country.
A: Canada, china, and the use are huge too.
B; there are several tiny countries in the world too. Countries like Monaco are smaller than many cities.
A: those small countries are microscopic2 compared to Russia. European countries are relatively3 small. France looks quite big in Europe, but compared to many countries in other continents, it’s not very large at all.
B: britain is half the size of france, but great Britain is still one of the largest islands in the world.
A; the thing with large countries is that often they have vast areas of land that are useless or hardly used. Russia and Canada have enormous areas of ice and forest.
Intermediate
A: that looks like an interesting book.
B: it is. It’s got pictures of interesting building from all over the world, with brief descriptions of how they were build, their purpose, and so on.
A: there are the pyramids. It’s easy to see how they got that name! they don’t have smooth sides though.
B: they don’t now, but most of them did originally. There’s picture of the pentagon in the united states. It’s very distinctive4 with its five sides.
A; look at that cylindrical5 office building. I’ve never been seen one that shape before.
B; yes. Usually only towers are cylindrical in shape.
A: tv towers are usually thicker at the bottom than at the top. They’re not perfectly6 cylindrical.
B: this is the world’s largest sports stadium. It’s a massive oval.
A; what sports do they play there?
B: it says here that it’s mainly used for big football matches and athletics7 meetings.
A: is that building a perfect cube?
B: according to the book, it is. I’ve never seen a building that is a perfect cube. Look at the building. From the air, it looks like a square with a semi-circle attached to each of its four sides. What kind of building is it?
A: is says here that it’s a war memorial. Now, there’s a distinctive structure-the atomium in Brussels. See? It consists of several connected by cylinders8. I believe you can go up and down inside it.
words
large enormous tiny microscopic average medium short width thin thick circular square rectangle rectangular height oval triangular semi-circle cube sphere three-dimensional pyramid diamond star-shaped cylindrical round spherical shallow vast
