1 Water

Reading

2 A famous tower

1 G
 uess the answers to the questions. Then read the text

3 A hospital school
quickly and check your answers.
1 How heavy is Big Ben, the bell in the tower (in tonnes)? 4 98
2 How tall is the tower (in metres)?

4 Strange plants
3 How many clock faces are there? 312 4.2
4 How long are the big hands of the clock faces (in metres)?
5 How many pieces of glass are there in each clock face?
11.8
5 Ants This is a picture of a very famous clock tower. It is part of the Houses
of Parliament in London, next to the River Thames. The real name of
the tower is St Stephen’s Tower, but most people call it ‘Big Ben’.

6
In fact, Big Ben is the name of the biggest bell inside the tower. There
Flight are four smaller bells too. Big Ben is very
big and heavy. It weighs 11.8 tonnes –
that’s as heavy as three or four adult
elephants!

7 Ancient Egypt
The tower is 98 metres tall. The clock has
got four clock faces, so you can see the time
from all four sides. It is very accurate. It is
never more than one second wrong!

8
The diameter of each clock face is seven metres. The big hand of each
Sharks
clock face is 4.2 metres long – that’s taller than two men! The small
hands are 2.7m long. Each clock face is made of 312 pieces of glass.

9
It takes a very long time to clean them! The cleaners use ropes. They

Braille
can’t use ladders because the tower is too high.

2 Find these words in the text. Write.

1 a metal object that makes a ringing sound = b __ __ __
Term 1 Monsters
2 the part of a clock where the numbers and hands are = f __ __ __

3 Read the text again and make sentences.

Term 2 At the beach
1 The Houses of Parliament are a the Houses of Parliament.
2 St Stephen’s Tower is part of b big hands.
3 Big Ben is c to clean the clock faces.
Term
4 There are3five
All about my friend
d a big, heavy bell.
5 There are four e next to the river Thames.
6 Cleaners use ropes f bells in the tower.

2 A famous tower PHOTOCOPIABLE © Oxford University Press | Incredible English 4

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