Grade 7 English and Reading Comprehension: Fossil Rock, Grammar, and Vocabulary

Vocabulary and key concepts covering Grade 7 English reading strategies, passive voice grammar, and historical and geological terms from the study of Fossil Rock and Mleiha.

Lava

Hot, liquid rock that comes out of a volcano.

Expedition

A trip taken by explorers to find out about a place.

Archaeologists

People who study old objects to learn about the past.

Breathtaking

A descriptive term meaning very beautiful and exciting.

Identify

To determine or recognize who someone is, such as the police using fingerprints to establish who was at a crime scene.

Geological history

The record of the Earth's physical changes and rock formations over millions of years, demonstrated by landmarks like the Grand Canyon.

Fossil Rock

A large, orange-colored mountain in the desert of Sharjah, near Mleiha, that preserves fossils of sea creatures from when the area was covered by a shallow sea.

Erosion

The gradual natural process that shapes rock formations through factors like strong desert winds, heavy rains washing rock away, and cracking caused by hot days and cold nights.

Mleiha Archaeological Centre

The facility where ancient objects, such as stone tools older than 100,000 years and old pottery found around Mleiha, are displayed today.

Gist

The overall main idea of a text, typically identified by reading the first and last paragraphs.

Detail questions

Questions that require identifying a key word in the question and locating that specific word or information within the text.

Reference words

Pronouns and determiners such as 'it', 'they', or 'this' whose meaning is found by looking back at the preceding sentence.

Jebel Hafeet

A location where fossils of sea creatures are found because the surrounding area was once submerged under the sea.

Marianas Trench

An extremely deep ocean trench explored by scientists utilizing specialized machines.

Ibn al-Nafis

The historical scholar who described the movement of blood.

Passive voice

A grammatical construction where the object of an action becomes the subject of the sentence, formed using a form of 'to be' and the past participle (e.g., 'The rocks were shaped by the wind').