The Map on Your Wall Lies
Lee el texto en inglés, parte por parte, y responde cada pregunta. Toca una palabra con línea punteada para ver su traducción. Abajo está el vocabulario completo en español.
Look at a common world map and Greenland appears roughly the size of Africa. In reality, Africa is about fourteen times larger. The error is not a mistake by a careless mapmaker. It is the price of a choice made in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator.
1. How much bigger is Africa than Greenland?
- AAbout the same size
- BAbout four times
- CAbout fourteen times
Ver la respuesta
C. About fourteen times
In reality, Africa is about fourteen times larger.
La prueba en el texto: Africa is about fourteen times larger
Mercator was designing a map for sailors. He needed a straight line on paper to match a constant compass direction at sea, so that a navigator could plot a course with a ruler. To achieve this, he stretched the map more and more toward the poles.
2. What did Mercator want sailors to be able to do?
- APlot a course with a ruler
- BSee every country's true size
- CSail without a compass
Ver la respuesta
A. Plot a course with a ruler
He wanted a navigator to plot a course with a ruler.
La prueba en el texto: so that a navigator could plot a course with a ruler
The stretching made the map superb for navigation and poor for everything else. Countries near the equator, much of Africa, South America and southern Asia, look smaller than they are, while Europe and North America look larger. Nobody intended a message, but a map carries one anyway.
3. True or false? Mercator made Europe look bigger on purpose.
- ATrue (Verdadero)
- BFalse (Falso)
Ver la respuesta
B. False (Falso)
Nobody intended a message; the stretching was for sailors.
La prueba en el texto: Nobody intended a message
Every flat map of a round world must distort something, whether shape, size or distance. The question is not whether a map is accurate but what it was made to do. A map built for sailors in the sixteenth century is still shaping how millions of people picture the world today.
4. What does the writer say we should ask about a map?
- AWhether it is accurate
- BWhat it was made to do
- CWho drew it
Ver la respuesta
B. What it was made to do
Not whether it is accurate, but what it was made to do.
La prueba en el texto: what it was made to do
Vocabulario en español
| Inglés | Español | Significado en inglés |
|---|---|---|
| compass | brújula | a tool with a needle that points north |
| navigator | navegante | the person who plans a ship's route |
| stretched | estiró | made longer or wider by pulling |
| equator | ecuador | the imaginary line around the middle of the Earth |
| distort | distorsionar | change the shape of something so it looks wrong |
Ahora escribe tú
Escribe una frase en inglés: In one sentence: why does the common world map make Greenland look so big?
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