The truth about magpies

Level: Upper-intermediate B2

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Magpies have a bad reputation for stealing and killing other birds. But is it true?

Here is an interesting article about magpies from the BBC Earth webpage.
Read the article and then answer the following questions:

1) What is Pica pica?
2) Where does the magpies reputation of stealing come from?
3) True or false: magpies eat eggs and small birds.
4) What happened to the magpie population in Britain between 1966 and 1986?
5) According to the article, are magpies thieves?


Answers below!





ANSWERS!

1) Eurasian magpie
2) A French play (and then an Italian opera)
3) True
4) It increased steadily by about 5% per year
5) No

California drought: Will the Golden State turn brown?

Level: Upper-intermediate B2

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California has introduced water restrictions, but will they work?

Here is an article about the drought. There are two short videos in the article. Watch the SECOND VIDEO (near the and of the article) and then answer the following questions:

Video 2 - Numbers:

1) Lake McClure is how much lower than its historical average?
2) How much of the world's almonds come from California?
3) How much of America's fruit, nuts and vegetables come from California?
4) According to Dave Phippen, by how much has California's population grown recently?
5) How much water has been lost in the last year?


Answers below!






ANSWERS!

1) A third
2) Around 80%
3) Half
4) Doubled in thirty years
5) 63 trillion gallons (63,000,000,000,000 gallons)