Search results for 'tag:Modal verbs tag:Universities' matching tags 'Modal verbs' and 'Universities'

Easy but long...)))

Prez1dent — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:01:57 GMT

Hello!
My mother is studying in University. She was given this testing. I've solved this English testing for her but I'm not sure if it is alright. Could you check it? Sorry, it's quite long.

I. Grammar Exercises
1 Articles
1. *The* equipment of Blake & Co is very good. They sell it to ** different companies
2. Where are *the* newspapers? They are on *the* desk.
3. There ** much built in furniture in our kitchen. *The* furniture makes *the* kitchen comfortable.
4. We are interested in buying ** machines from British companies.
5. *The* tools of Blake & Co are of ** high quality.
6. Weâve received *the* enquiry for ** three machines lately.
7. ** Last month our manager went to St. Petersburg by train He went there by *an * express train. *The* train had no stops.
8. If you want to get a room at *a *hotel in Nice in summer time you must reserve *the* accommodation in advance. ** Nice hotels are full during summer time.
9. The Seller didnât agree to give us *the* discount as their goods were in *a* great demand at that price.
10. We are interested in buying ** compressors for *a* new shop of *the* large plant in Siberia. *The* shop is already under construction and customers require goods urgently, as they must complete the construction of the shop by the end of the year.

2 Prepositions
1. She is sitting *on* the table and speaking ** the phone. She is making an appointment on Friday.
2. They met Mr. Black *in* his office. The meeting began at 10 oâclock and lasted ** (for?) two hours.
3. *The* other day Rossexport received an enquiry for the motors of Johanson & Sons.
4. The train will arrive with a delay for 40 minutes. Will you go to the departure lounge and wait for the announcement?
5. -Can you give us a discount *for* a large order?
- As we have done a lot of business with you we can give you a small discount. In case weâd like to have a discount of 7%.
6. The charge for a room in this hotel is not very high.
7. They offered to deliver the pumps *in* (of?) four lots 12 pumps each in regular intervals of 5 months.
8. Youâve reserved a single and a double room for you for two nights on the fourth floor. These are modern rooms with private baths. They donât face the street.
9. -Iâd like a suit for office wear.
-Try *on* this one in size.
10. The Seller offered the goods *at* CIF terms and payment collection.

3 Degrees of comparison
1. The âSonyâ TV-set is more expensive than the âAkaiâ TV-set. Itâs one of the most expensive TV-sets.
2. Are our cars as convenient as German cars?
3. This is the busiest airport Iâve ever seen.
4. I come on Monday later than on other days.
5. *More often* we give discount to the Buyers if we have known them for a long time.

4Verb times
1. Now you *see* Mr. Black in his office. During the day he *looks* through English newspapers, *discusses* business matters. Now he is reading a letter. He *is going to phone* the manager of the company.
2. -What model are you interested in?
-Model BC5 *meets* our requirement.
3. The fact *is* I sent you our offer last week. In my letter I asked you to study it and give us your answer but we havenât received it yet.
4. -*Does* the plane o Moscow leaves on time?
-There is a delay but it probably *wonât be* over 30 minutes
5. Good morning, Mr. Black. Iâm glad to see you. I havenât seen you since we met in London
6. How long *it takes* (Will it take?) me to get there?
-Itâll take you about half an hour to get there at this time of the day. There is a lot of traffic now. Look, bus 79A *is coming.*
7. Have you discussed the terms of delivery yet?
8. Jack arrived at the theatre about 7 oâclock. Ten minutes later he was sitting in the stalls and watching the performance.
9. Rossexport started shipping the goods nine months after we *had signed* the contract.
10. I donât know when our accountant comes back

5Reported speech
1. Mr. Black said it hadnât taken us long to discuss the price.
2. The office manager said you would go on business to London soon.
3. Mr. Black asked if Mr. Taylor was staying with us.
4. Mr. Black wants to know what discount Mr. Smith can give us.
5. Mr. Black said your prices were very high and they couldnât accept them.
6. Mr. Black asked who Mr. Brown was waiting for.
7. Mr. Black wanted to know if Nancy had translated the letter.
8. Mr. Black says to look through the quotation from Dunn & Co.
9. Mr. Black said not to send the fax to Smith & Co.
10. Mr. Black asked if their goods met Mr. Smithâs requirements.

6Modal verbs
1. Can I offer you a cup of tea?
2. -Must I go to the office every day?
-No. You mustnât.
3. -May I invite businessmen to the conference room?
-No, you mustnât (or mightnât?). It must be cleaned.
4. When can you look through it?
5. -Why are you so late?
-Because I had to phone the British company.
6. -Why did Mr. Smith go to London last month?
-He was to sign a contract there.
7. If the manager doesnât have to stay late at the head office today he will be able to meet Mr. Smith
8. We received your offer 5 days ago wand we couldnât study it.
9. Who can make good coffee?
10. You are to contact Black & Co next Monday.

Re: past perfect vs past in if-clause in type 2 conditional

yulysess — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 16:05:12 GMT

Let's spread out the issue a little bit:

____ O ____

Type 2. Basic forms.

a. If we caught the 10 o'clock train, we would (could, might,

etc.) get there by lunch-time.

b. If I came into a fortune, I would give up smoking.

c. If I knew how it worked, I could tell you what to do.

In these sentences the conditional clauses represent what is a possible, b hypothetical/imaginary, or c contrary to the present fact. The verb form in the conditional clause represents the attitude of the speaker towards the condition; it does not represent time, which is indicated by other elements in the context or situation.

Sentence a is analogous to type 1 (If we catch..., we shall get...), but is more suppositional. The speaker either regards catching that train as improbable, or he wishes to put forward in a more tentative or "polite" way the suggestion of catching it. It does not necessarily follow that the condition is in fact unlikely to be fulfilled.

Sentence b, on the other hand, is much more hypothetical: it is a form of day-dreaming in which we all indulge at times.

Sentence c presents us with totally imaginary (or unreal) situation with reference to the time of speaking: it implies that I don't, in fact, know how it works, so I can't tell you what to do. Note that the past tense is used here to indicate present unreality.

The three sentences are formally identical: they all have the same sequence of tenses:

(if) past tense, (main) conditional.

However, contextually they are rather different. They represent three points on a scale of decreasing probability, from a suppositional or tentative but possible, to b hypothetical but not impossible, to c contrary to present fact, and hence unreal.

Note that the conditional tense is not used in the conditional clause.

As we saw in example "c", the idea of something contrary to present fact is conveyed by the use of the past tense in the conditional clause. We also use the past tense to refer to present unreality after the verb "wish" (if only, also expresses the wish of the speaker), and after expressions like "I'd rather" and "It is time":

a. I wish (that) I were rich! (If only I were rich!)

b. I'd rather you told me frankly what you think.

c. It's time (It's about time, It's high time) we left.

We never use the present tense or a future form after wish. We use either the past tense as illustrated above, or we can use would (not will) to indicate that people or events frustrate our desires.

Type 2. Variations.

a. If we were to miss the 10 o'clock train, we wouldn't get there till after lunch.

The use of were to in the conditional clause sometimes has the effect of emphasizing the suppositional nature of the condition and, is in some ways analogous to the use of should in conditional clauses in TYPE 1: we can often substitute "by any chance" without changing the meaning: If by any chance we missed the 10 o'clock train, we wouldn't get there till after lunch.

Were to is used for all persons, and this variation may be applied to any conditional clause of this second type.

b. If you would reserve seats, we would be sure of a comfortable journey.

In this sentence. would is not a part of a conditional tense; it is a modal verb, and represents a more tentative (or polite) form of WILL as used in conditional clauses of type 1. It introduces the idea of your agreeing, or being willing, to do what is suggested. We cannot use this construction in the following sentence:

If he got my letters in time, he would be able to change his plans.

We cannot say

*If he would get my letter in time, since "he" can hardly exercise any willingness or unwillingness to get it.

You must, therefore, be careful to use "would" in this way only where the context will support the idea of co-operation, agreement, or willingness on the part of the subject.

Type 2. Summary of forms.

1. (If) past tense, (main) conditional.

If we caught the early train, we'd get there by lunch time.

2. (If) were to + infinitive, (main) conditional.

If we were to miss the early train, we wouldn't get there till after lunch.

3. (If) would + infinitive, (main) conditional.

If you'd cook the dinner, I'd do the washing up afterwards.

Type 3. Basic forms and variations.

a. If we had caught the 10 o'clock train, we would (could, might, etc.) have got there by lunch-time.

This sentence is completely hypothetical, and represents what is contrary to past fact. In this case, the past perfect tense is used to indicate past unreality -we didn't catch the 10 o'clock train, so we didn't get there by lunch time.

This is analogous to the use of the past tense to indicate present unreality in type 2c, and tense usage after the verb WISH follows the same pattern: we use the past perfect to refer to something wished-for in the past:

I wish you had told me before (but you didn't)

Variations on a sentence "a" are not very common, though sentences like the following are occasionally met with:

b. If you were to have asked me, I would have been only too willing to help.

Bibliography

R. A. Close (1975). A Reference Grammar for Students of English. Longman.

B.D. Graver (1979). Advanced English Practice. OUP

S.M. Parkinson (1983). A University English Grammar for Spanish-Speakers. Ed. EmpeÃ±o

R. Quirk et al. (1979). A Grammar of Contemporary English. Longman

W. Stannard Allen (1977). Living English Structure. Longman

M. Swan (1986). Practical English Usage. OUP

A.J. Thomson & A.V. Martinet (1982). A Practical English Grammar. OUP

______ O _______

Enjoy

Also look at the link Marius gave.

Would you be so kind to correct my essay? thank you

eagertolearn — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 14:40:28 GMT

I'm taking a course to become an English Teacher in Spain and I have to write a summary of all the lessons I attend during the course. Once I have all the summaries I'll have to hand them in to my teacher and I wouldn't like to have any grammar mistakes. Could you take a look and check everything is OK? thanks in advance. By the way, I haven't checked my punctuation so you will probably find many mistakes in this field. One more thing, I would be interested in knowing your opinions about the things said in the essay. Here you are:

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT:
DEVELOPING SPEAKING ATTITUDES

After spending a quarter of an hour in the class, I started thinking I had gone to the wrong building or maybe classroom. Everything was completely different from any previous classes I had had at University. The atmosphere had nothing to do with the one you found at University. In this case, even though it was a Saturday morning, the students were relaxed and eager to learn. But the atmosphere was not what struck me the most. Once LuÃs FernÃ¡ndez entered the class and introduced himself, two thoughts came to my mind. First, I thought that maybe I would not learn a lot with him but at least I would have great fun. Second, I thought that was the kind of teacher I had always wanted to have when I was at school. Someone who could make the student feel at ease, which is specially necessary in an English class.
To my surprise, I did learn some valuable advice that day. One of the things he said was that in order to become English teachers we had to know more than a native speaker. I was not surprised to hear that, since I have always thought non native speakers have to be familiarised with the way grammar works in order to teach it. Whereas native speakers do not have to since they learnt English naturally and without great effort. Even though I agreed with LuÃs FernÃ¡ndez in this point, he said some things which I absolutely disagree with. For instance, the idea that we have to be aware that some of our students will never be able to learn English, no matter how hard we try to teach them. My experience in teaching English is very little but I think that anybody can learn something if he or she wants to. Maybe those who have difficulties in learning will have to work harder and will need more time than the average student but, in the end, they will get to speak English. Maybe what the teacher meant was that some students are hard to teach no matter how much effort we make because, after all, the ones who have to make the effort are the students themselves.
Some of the things that were said in class that day changed the way I teach my classes now. The teacher said that we have to get to know our students. Know what they are interested in, what worries them or what motivates them. Even though I consider I have a good relationship with my students I try to keep some distance because I donât pretend to be my studentâs friend. I do speak with my students about many things but I try not to talk about my personal life or to make them talk about theirs. Since LuÃs FernÃ¡ndez gave us that piece of advice I try to know more about my students and their likes and dislikes and I can say it helps create a better and more relaxed atmosphere.
We not only have to know our students but also help them know one another. This way they will be willing to use English to explain one another what they like or what they have done this weekend. Moreover, they will be given the chance to put into practice those structures and vocabulary we have taught them.
In order to put into practice all that was said in class, we did some exercises. The teacher told us that if our students are not concentrated and relaxed, they wonât be able to learn anything. A good way to keep their attention is to ask them to close their eyes and relax at the time we are explaining or whispering a story. With this exercise the student relaxes all his/her body and mind too. Once the exercise ends they are fresh to learn again. That day we had the chance to put it into practice and even though I was more sleepy after coming back to earth, I do think it may be an original and interesting way to create a good atmosphere in class.
Although this session was not supposed to deal with how to mark and correct our studentsâ exercises, the topic was already introduced. We were given a fill in the blanks exercise to practise modal verbs. After doing the exercise individually we corrected it altogether and realised that, in some cases, there was more than one possible answer. This way we learnt that marking an exercise is not a simple task and sometimes it is better to give a mark instead of correcting every single mistake. Specially with young students who are not interested in writing properly but in getting a good mark. Moreover, this way we safe time since correcting can take us long and, as FernÃ¡ndez said, all teachers have to find time to keep learning and studying to become better professionals.