(Beijing in the smog)

If you want to practice the Conditionals and learn some facts about pollution do the following exercises.

EXERCISES

1. When gasoline is burnt to power cars and trucks, it [produce] carbon monoxide.
2. Carbon monoxide is harmful when it [concentrate] in great amounts.
3. If the air in a city [get] very polluted, it can make people’s eyes burn.
4. If smog is frequently formed in a city, it [cause] difficulty in breathing, headaches and even lung cancer.
5. Some cities that suffer from extreme smog, issue air pollution warnings. If you [live] in Hong Kong, you would often hear official warnings not to go outside or engage in strenuous physical activity (such as running or swimming).
6. Unfortunately, we only recently discovered how air pollution contributes to global warming. If we [know] about it earlier, we might have taken stricter measures in time.
7. We [be] happy if air pollution were the only problem.
8. Water pollution [result] when oil or chemical waste leak into oceans and lakes.
9. There is great hazard from buried chemical waste, too. If we [not bury] chemical waste underground, we wouldn’t pollute fresh water supplies. This happened in the 1970s to people who lived in the Love Canal area in Niagara Falls, New York. They suffered from extremely high rates of cancer and birth defects. It was discovered that a chemical waste dump had poisoned the area’s water.
10. If the chemical waste hadn’t poisoned the area’s water, 800 families [not/abandon] their homes.
11. Unfortunately, pollution wouldn’t be such an issue if we -governments and common people- really [care].

(To check your answers see further down this page.)

What do you do to protect the environment? Do you know how long it takes for some common types of trash to break down? Click here to do the quiz and find out.

(Street trash)

ANSWERS

1. produces
2. concentrates
3. gets
4. causes
5. lived
6. had known
7. would be
8. results
9. didn’t bury
10. wouldn’t have abandoned
11. cared

(Images from pics4learning.com)