Материал: voronina_ev_sotsialnokulturnaia_sfera_obshcheniia

Imagine you run a small food shop in your local neighbourhood. Suddenly, a giant supermarket opens for business opposite your shop. What happens to you and your business?

In the natural world, things are often the same. The red squirrel was living happily in England when, in the 1880s, many people brought grey squirrels from North America as pets. Since then, these pets have escaped into the wild. They now eat the same food as the red squirrels, and they eat it more quickly. Consequently, now there aren't many native squirrels in England and they are in danger of extinction.

There are many invaders that don't cause extinctions, but they do destroy plants and harm the economy. For example, European red deer are destroying the forests in South America because they eat the young trees. Rabbits have spread from Europe and now eat farmers' crops all over the world. These kinds of invaders are causing problems for humans, unlike the grey squirrels,

which cause little damage to plants and don't damage the economy.

Few invaders are large land animals; most of them are fish or small animals like insects. There are thousands of these invaders and these smaller animals often mean farmers lose a lot of money. The apple snail from South America doesn't cause much damage in Europe, but it causes a lot of damage in southeast Asia because it loves to eat rice plants.

There are very few positive sides to these animal invasions. However, in Britain today, one invasion story offers some hope. Chinese mitten crabs first came on ships from China. These crabs destroy local environments and attack fish in fish farms. However, in China these crabs are an expensive food, so, now, Britain is selling them back to China. The crabs are travelling on ships again, but this time they are food, not invaders; and this time they are helping the British economy, not harming it.

3. Language skills

Grammar: Expressing Quantity

3.a We can use a lot of with both countable and uncountable nouns. It means a large number or quantity. How do we use the other words in the box? Find and underline examples in the text.

a lot of few little many much

3.b Are these statements true or false? Use the examples you underlined in the text to help you.

1 We never use much in questions.

2 We often use many in positive sentences.

3 We don’t usually use much in positive sentences.

Instead, we use a lot of.

4 We never use much in negative sentences.

5 We can use many in questions and negative sentences.

3.c Complete this paragraph with much, many, a lot of, little or few.

There are many or a lot of animals that

worse than humans. 200,000 years ago there were very 3) __________

humans. Now there are nearly six billion of them. Unfortunately, there isn't 4) _________ information about the early history of this species, but it seems certain that the first humans

year (150-180) humans were living on every continent on Earth. How 6)

_________ damage have these invaders caused? They have destroyed 7) _____________ native plants and animals. Before humans, there was 8)

__________ pollution. Now, there is 9)

_________ pollution and it is causing 10) ___________ harm to the global environment. It seems that humans need to change things about their lifestyle if they want to survive.

In my country, there are many/is a lot of…

In my country, there are few/ is little…

In my house, there are many/ a lot of…

In my house, there aren’t many/isn’t much…

I’ve got many/a lot of…

I haven’t got many/much… I spend a lot of time…

I spend little…