2016/2015AOU EL320 TMA Second Semester

Arab Open University

Tutor Marked Assignment (TMA)

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE STUDIES

EL320 2nd Semester, 2015-2016

Branch: / Program: English Language and Literature
Course Title: / Course Code: EL320
Student Name: / Student ID:
Section Number: / Tutor Name:
Mark Allocated
to TMA / STUDENT MARK
10% / Content : a max of 10 marks / Marks deducted for lang. & communication errors: a maximum of 2 marks / Earned Mark

Notes on plagiarism:

According to the Arab Open University By-laws, “the following acts represent cases of cheating and plagiarism, the penalties of which range from failure in the TMA to expulsion from the university.

§  Copying from the internet, or from other students’ notes or reports.

§  Using paid or unpaid material prepared for the student by individuals or firms.

Declaration: I hereby declare that the submitted TMA is my own work and I have not copied any other person’s work or plagiarized in any other form as specified above.
Student Signature:

TMA feedback: (PT3)

EL320 TMA

[Prepared by EL320 Course Chair: Dr. Asim Ilyas]

1. Read the following English text carefully, and then translate it into Arabic (8 Marks).

2. Answer the following: (2 marks)

A. Make a list of the difficult words which you came across in the text and had to consult the dictionary about.

B. Make a list of the sentences that you found difficult in structure.

Good Luck!

Our Planet and Space Exploration
How big is the Earth? Any encyclopedia will give you an answer: its equatorial diameter is 12,756km, or, for those who prefer to think that way, 7,926 miles. Taking its atmosphere into consideration will make the planet's true diameter nearer 13,000km, including all its air. The vacuum surrounding the earth buzzes with artificial satellites, forming a sort of techno-sphere beyond the atmosphere. Most of these satellites circle only a few hundred kilometers above the earth's solid surface.
Viewed this way, the Earth is quite a lot larger than the traditional textbook answer. And viewed this way, the Space Age has been a roaring success. Telecommunications, weather forecasting, agriculture, forestry and even the search for minerals have all been revolutionized. Space technology has also greatly affected warfare. No power can any longer mobilize its armed forces in secret. The exact location of every building on the planet can be known. And satellite-based global-positioning systems will guide a smart bomb to that location on demand.
Elon Musk in America and Sir Richard Branson in Britain hope to make human space flight commercially viable. But the market seems small and vulnerable. One part, space tourism, is a luxury service that is, in any case, unlikely to go beyond low-Earth orbit at best (the cost of getting even as far as the moon would reduce the number of potential clients to a handful). The other source of revenue is ferrying astronauts to the benighted International Space Station (ISS), surely the biggest waste of money, at $100 billion and counting, that has ever been built in the name of science.
The year 2011 might, in the history books of the future, be seen as the year that marks the end of America's space-shuttle programme, whose last mission was launched on July 8th. The shuttle was supposed to be a reusable truck that would make the business of putting people into orbit regularly. Instead, it has been nothing but trouble, twice, has killed its crew. If it had been seen as an experimental vehicle that would not have been a particular cause for concern as test pilots are killed all the time. But the shuttle was seen as a “Space Transportation System”.
The shuttle is now over. Humanity's space dreams have, largely, faded. Public interest in the whole thing is likely to wane. And it is the public that pays for it all. There is no appetite to return to the moon, nor push on to Mars. The technology could be there, but the passion has gone—at least in the traditional spacefaring super powers, America and Russia.
China, might wish, like President John Kennedy 50 years ago, to send people to the surface of the moon and return them safely to Earth. But the date for doing so seems elastic. Even if China succeeds in matching America's distant triumph, it still faces the question, “what next?” The chances are that the Chinese government will say “job done” and end the story there.
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