Exercises 2A and 2B: Editing for Verbs
Answer Key

2A The Flight of the Voyager

1 On December 23, 1986, the Voyager aircraft completed its nine-day, 26,000 mile, nonstop flight around the world. 2 When it \land > landed\, it became the first plane to circumnavigate the Earth without \land > landing\ or \refuel > refueling\ in midair. 3 The importance of this achievement by Dick Ratan and Jeana Yeager, the pilots, has been \comparing > compared\ to the significance of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, to the first solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by Charles Lindbergh in 1927, and to the breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager in 1947. 4 The Voyager \+was\ designed by Burt Ratan, and it \+was\ built by volunteers. 5 The flight \faces > faced\ several near tragedies with its nearly fatal takeoff and its turbulent meeting with a typhoon on the second day. 6 Fears of not \have > having\ sufficient fuel \become > became\ everyone's concern during the last few days of the flight. 7 Weighing less than 2,000 pounds and carrying 7,000 pounds of fuel at takeoff, the Voyager will undoubtedly \have been influenced > influence\ future commercial and military aircraft design.

2B The Genetic Manipulation of Tobacco

1 Ever since Sir Walter Raleigh popularized smoking in England nearly 400 years ago, botanists have been experimenting with cultivating smoother, more aromatic, and slower-burning tobacco. 2 In the past, tobacco farmers \nurture >nurtured\ their crops for use in \filter > filtering\ cigarettes; today, modern biologists are \experiment > experimenting\ with the tobacco plant for genetic purposes. 3 By \transplant > transplanting\ genes from white rats, fireflies, and flowering snapdragons, genetic engineers have \produce > produced\ new varieties of tobacco plants; these varieties can \glowed > glow\ in the dark, resist antibiotics and herbicides, and even poison the insects that \-are\ eat their leaves. 4 For genetic engineers, tobacco is a model crop because it \was > is\ so pliable: the tobacco cells can be easily altered by foreign genes, and a single tobacco cell can be \nurture >nurtured\ into an entire plant. 5 When a firefly gene was \transplant > transplanted\ into a tobacco plant in 1986, scientist created a genetic marker that helped researchers monitor transplants. 6 Researchers now recommend that scientists move the research from the laboratories to the farms. 7 The genetic manipulation of crops is not new, and mankind \had >has\ spent millions of dollars so far trying to understand plant genetics.

Marsha Chan
English as a Second Language Department
Mission College
3000 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1897
(408) 855-5314
URL: http://www.missioncollege.org/depts/esl/