Basic HTML Version
14
BIOLOGY
You will hear some information about Charles
Darwin’s life and works. For questions 1-17 complete
the sentences.
Charles Robert Darwin became interested in
(1)
____________________________
and
(2)
____________________________
at Cambridge.
He was studying to become a
(3)
____________________________
but his passion
for
(4)
____________________________
took over and he decided to devote
himself to
(5)
____________________________
.
In
(6)
____________________________
he made a five-year-long
(7)
____________________________
to the South Seas aboard The Beagle, as a
(8)
____________________________
, and started to collect the
(9)
____________________________
that would lead him to his first theories on
(10)
____________________________
.
It was only in 1857, however, twenty years after his return to
(11)
____________________________
, that he published his
(12)
____________________________
, first in a scientific paper and the following year in book form: On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection (1858).
Darwin continued to work on his theories in a series of
(13)
____________________________
. One of them, The Descent of Man
(1871), caused an even greater
(14)
____________________________
since it stressed the
(15)
____________________________
between man
and certain
(16)
____________________________
and postulated the idea that man was only an
(17)
____________________________
ape.
liStening
04
Charles Darwin
(1809-1882)
S
iSteR
a
RtS
that is (cioè)
repellent
scarcely
group
rugged / thought
(antenati)
(imbrattati) /(arruffati)
shocked / (cauta)
The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from
some lowly-organized form,
1
will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many
persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians.
2
The astonishment which I felt on first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and
broken shore will never be forgotten by me, for the reflection at once rushed
into my mind – such were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and
bedaubed with paint, their long hair was tangled, their mouths frothed
3
with
excitement, and their expression was wild, startled, and distrustful. They
5
Darwin in Tierra del Fuego
The Descent of Man is, together with The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin’s most famous book. In
it he takes the theory of evolution and natural selection to its extreme consequences: man, however
noble he may appear today, is descended from an evolved ape. It was during his voyage to the South
Seas in 1832 that, in seeing a group of Fuegian natives (the original inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, in
South America), Darwin conceived his theory of evolution.
Reading
1.
lowly-organized form
: i.e simple animal.
2.
barbarians
: uncivilized being.
3.
frothed
: schiumavano.
Charles
Darwin,
T
HE
D
ESCENT
OF
M
AN
(1871)
001-027_The Victorians.indd 14
16/01/12