Most likely number of contactable alien civilizations is 36

Level 1 l Pre-intermediate / Intermediate

KEY
1 Warmer 4 Space vocabulary

1. b. According to NASA, there are currently five 1. b

planets classified as dwarf planets: Ceres, Pluto, 2. e
Makemake, Haumea and Eris. The planets are 3. a
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, 4. f
Uranus and Neptune. 5. c
2. a. A light year is the distance that light travels in 6. d
vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days).
3. b. A light year measures 9.46 trillion kilometres.
4. b. 5 Word stress
5. b.
a.
Teacher’s note: Get the students to do this quiz in teams,
1. b
and see which team gets the most correct answers.
2. h
3. c
2 Key words 4. e
5. a/g
1. calculation 6. a/g
2. civilization 7. f
3. communicate 8. d
4. estimate Teacher’s note: Get students to listen to the words
5. research on www.macmillandictionary.com by clicking on the
6. equation speaker symbol below the word. Tell them to tap out the
7. tool syllables of the word as they hear them spoken.
8. assumption
9. form
10. reasonable
11. likely
12. survive

3 Comprehension check

1. T
2. F – They say that we might be able to speak to
them in just over 6,000 years from now.
3. F – They think that alien life forms will probably
look similar to us.
4. T
5. T
D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA

Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2020.

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NEWS LESSONS / Most likely number of contactable alien civilizations is 36 / Pre-intermediate / Intermediate
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