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photo Tara Benwell Listen to News with Tara Benwell - Instructions:
1. Preview the vocabulary and read the gapfill text.
2. Play the news report and try to fill in the blanks.
3. Answer the comprehension questions by writing full sentences.
4. Use the discussion question to write an essay or discuss the story with other students.
5. Click "show Answers" to see the full text.
6. Pretend to be a news anchor by reading each story out loud.

dateline: 20 May 2014

Listen to NewsHeaviest Dinosaur Discovered

Pre-Listening Vocabulary

  • palaeontologist: a scientist who studies fossils
  • herbivore: a plant eater
  • humerus: the bone between the shoulder and the elbow
  • femur: the bone between the hip and the knee (thighbone)
  • circumference: the distance around a circular shaped object
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Heaviest Dinosaur Discovered

Argentinean palaeontologists believe they have dinosaur bones from the largest creature ever on earth. They believe the bones are from an unknown of titanosaur, a herbivore that walked on earth about 95 million years ago. The scientists estimate that the creature weighed about the size of . To estimate the body mass, they measured the circumference of the humerus and the femur. These are the bones that support the .

  1. Where did this discovery take place?
  2. According to estimates, how large was this creature?
  3. How did scientists calculate the creature’s weight?

Discussion Question: When asked what they want to be when they grow up, many young kids say they want to be a palaeontologist. What was your answer to this question when you were a child, and how did your response change when you got older?

show Answers

Written by Tara Benwell for EnglishClub
Tara Benwell is a Canadian freelance writer and editor who specializes in materials and articles for the ELT industry.

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