walidyousef.com (prepared by Mr. Walid Yousef)

Unit 5: The 5 Senses

Fascinating facts about the 5 SENSES

1 The human finger is so sensitive that it is capable of detecting a surface bump only 0.0001 mm high.

2 Men have a keener sense of smell than women.

3 Around 25% of people are 'supertasters'. Supertasters have more taste buds than the average person, and they tend to dislike bitter foods.

4 For the Ongee people of the Andaman Islands, smell is the most important sense. When greeting an Ongee, instead of asking, 'How are you?' it is usual to ask, 'How is your nose?'

5 Touch is the first sense to develop in babies and the last to fade at the end of our lives.

6 If you sit too close to a television screen, you risk damaging your eyesight.

7 Standing close to loudspeakers at concerts can cause hearing loss in 7 and a half minutes.

8 It is not possible to perceive smells while you are asleep.

9 Elephants use infrasonic sound to communicate. These low-frequency sounds enable elephants to make out sounds 285 km away.

10 Males are much more likely to be colour-blind than females.

3 Vocabulary

Complete the sentences with the highlighted words and phrases from the facts sheet. (Type your answers to get instant feedback!)

1 Your
is your ability to see.
2 If you are
, you can't tell the difference between some colours.
3 If you
something
, you can see, hear, or understand someone or something with some difficulty.
4
is another word for 'notice'.
5
are the tiny bumps on your tongue that allow you to recognise flavours.
6
is another way of saying 'deafness'.

4 Gerunds and infinitives

Match the underlined phrases in the fact sheet with the rules.

We use the infinitive:

1 after certain verbs, e.g.
2 after many adjectives, e.g.
3 to express purpose, e.g.
4 after first, second, third, last, etc., e.g.

We use the gerund:

5 after certain verbs, e.g.
6 after prepositions, e.g.
7 as the subject of a sentence, e.g.
8 after conjunctions like when, before, after, while, e.g.