Student Worksheet

In this lesson, you will complete a NAPLAN* style practice test. The test is in multiple-choice format.

Water Cycle Diagram

Reading text

An Introduction to Hydro Tasmania

Hydro Tasmania provides electrical energy for the people of Tasmania, Australia’s island state. The word ‘hydro’ means ‘water’. Power stations can make electricity by using water to turn large engines (or ‘turbines’) that make electromagnets release energy. Hydro Tasmania catches this electrical energy and sends it to places where it is needed, to power people’s homes and businesses.

How water is recycled naturally

Hydro Tasmania uses water to make big turbines turn inside power stations. This water is re-used many times. It is returned to lakes and rivers through the natural water cycle. After the water has run through a hydro power station, its journey continues downstream to the sea.

At sea level, the water absorbs heat from the sun, which causes it to turn into a gas or ‘evaporate’. During evaporation, water loses its impurities and becomes clean and fresh again. This is because water vapour cannot rise into the clouds while bits of dirt are attached to it. The heavy things in the water are left behind and only fresh, clean water rises into the air.

The water vapour rises up through the atmosphere. In Tasmania there are tall mountains. The clouds of water vapour run into these mountains and are forced to travel higher in the atmosphere, where the temperature is much colder.

This causes the water vapour to cool rapidly. This makes the water vapour turn back into its liquid form. When a gas turns back into a liquid, we call it ‘condensation’. Tiny water droplets collect together, forming clouds.

When the droplets of water in clouds get too heavy to stay in the air, they fall. This process is called ‘precipitation’. We call the precipitation of liquid water ‘rain’. Precipitation can also occur in the form of hail or snow.

The rain, hail or snow falls into highland lakes and rivers, where it becomes liquid water again. The water will be used again and again.

Reading questions

For questions 1 - 3, write TRUE or FALSE in the space provided. For questions 4 - 13, write your answer as a), b) or c).

Vocabulary activity

Some of the words in the Reading Text are shown in bold. Do you know their meanings? Test yourself by completing this matching activity, then check your answers. Strategy tips: Look at the sentence around the word to work out its meaning. Cross out the words as you use them to make it easier.

Match each word with its meaning by writing the correct numbers in the spaces provided. One has been done for you.

Challenge:

The names of which two natural forces have been put together to make the word ‘electromagnet’?

and

* This lesson plan is not an officially endorsed publication of NAPLAN’s creators and administrators - the ACARA body - but is designed to provide practice for the Australian Curriculum’s compulsory NAPLAN testing scheme.

Hydro Tasmania - Water Cycle (NAPLAN Reading Practice)

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