Select the best sentences to complete the passage:
Houses are buildings that people can live, eat and sleep in. They protect you from dangers
and bad weather. Most houses show the lifestyles, traditions and cultures of the people
who live in them. Homes and houses have different shapes and sizes. They are built of
different materials that depending on the climate of the area you live in. Long ago, people
built homes with whatever building materials that they had. In Africa and some islands of
the South Pacific they used grass or leaves that grew nearby. In the south-western part of
the United States the Pueblo Indians used sun-dried bricks to build their houses. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In the northern part of North America and in northern Europe wood has been the main
building material for many centuries. Early settlers in America built log cabins and in
Scandinavia people designed wooden houses with large beams and balconies. Brick is
among the oldest and most popular building material. It lasts long and is easy to get. Early
Dutch settlers brought bricks across the Atlantic to build their first houses. Stone is the
longest lasting of all building materials. Weather cannot destroy it so much and insects and
animals cannot bore into it as they can into wood. Stone has been used for all sorts of
houses, from palaces to farmers' cottages. In modern buildings we use concrete instead of
stone and brick. It is cheaper and can be produced almost everywhere. Concrete is a
mixture of sand, broken stones, water and other materials. Cement is added to hold it
together.
