BBC LEARNING ENGLISH

BBC News
Broadcast 13 February 2017

The story

Thousands of people living beneath the tallest dam in the United States have been ordered
to leave their homes because a damaged overflow channel, or spillway, is in danger of
collapse.

Engineers have been releasing water from the Oroville Dam in California and are using
helicopters to drop rocks onto the site.

Language challenge

Which of these clock idioms means '24 hours a day'?

a) round the clock

b) watch the clock
c) turn back the clock

News Review © British Broadcasting Corporation 2017

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Answer

a) round the clock

Vocabulary

evacuate
leave a place because of danger

overflow
spill liquid because there's too much

race against the clock

try to complete something urgent in a short space of time

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