Tag Archives: exercises
The Ireland Trip – Molly Molloy #2
Today’s reading exercise is provided again by guest blogger, Molly Molloy. Read the text below and answer the questions that follow
Sunday morning, another weekend almost at an end and I’m listening to Weekend Wogan on BBC Radio 2 whilst drinking a cup of tea and contemplating the fact that I’ve put an offer in on a house I fell in love with whilst I was in Ireland last week.
As is the norm in my life, the trip didn’t initially go smoothly. Firstly my friend Ann, who came with me on the trip, fell over on the tarmac as we walked towards the plane at Birmingham Airport and cut her leg. She said it was the ice, but it could just as well have been the patent leather stiletto boots she was wearing. I gave her the benefit of the doubt as I helped her up off the tarmac onto the plane. She was a bit ‘miffed’ that none of the airport staff had come to her aid.
The Office Move – Molly Molloy #1
Over the next few weeks, our guest blogger will be slightly crazy Molly Molloy, an office administrator from Leamington spa, near Oxford, England. Molly will be writing about her typical activities at work and at home. There are some questions to check your understanding of the text and you can post your answers in the comments box below.
A Day in the Life of Molly Molloy
My company moved offices at the beginning of the week. All things considered, it went quite well; desks, computers and printers had all made it to where they should have been. But it was a complete disaster when it came to the heating.
Uses of “get”
In English, “get” is an informal word and is used more often when speaking rather than when writing. It is very common and can have many different meanings. In this blog, I will explain some of the key uses of “get” and also teach you some common fixed expressions.
“Get”, or its past form “got” are extremely useful words when used correctly and can be used to replace a variety of other verbs such as “buy”, “obtain”, “receive” or, broadly speaking, “acquire”. “Get” is one of the most common verbs in the English language but has no equivalent in most other languages so try to pay special attention to how it is used.
Vocabulary: “white elephant”
A “white elephant” is an idiom for a valuable but demanding possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of maintenance) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth. The term derives from the story that the kings of Siam (now Thailand) used to give one of these animals as a gift to people they didn’t like, in order to financially ruin that person by the cost of its maintenance. The white elephant was considered sacred in Siamese culture so could not work and was therefore costly to its owner. In modern usage, it is an object, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered to be without use or value.
Passive Voice
The passive voice is a grammatical structure that enables us to emphasise the object of a sentence, rather than the subject. From First Certificate in English level onwards, you will be expected to be able to understand and use the passive voice correctly and may be graded on your use of it in both the Writing and Use of English papers.
In English, the subject usually appears before the verb and it is this primacy that gives the subject a sense of importance. The subject is usually the agent (i.e. the thing that does the verb) where the object receives the effect of the verb. To make it clear, have a look at the following example:
“The lion ate the zookeeper!”
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