Search results for 'tag:Tenses tag:Pronouns' matching tags 'Tenses' and 'Pronouns'

Tracking the mountain lion (Gapped sentences, CAE)

Tanit — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:16:58 GMT

This quiz is given by the University of Cambridge as a free sample of Paper 1 (Reading), Part 2 (Gapped Sentences) of the ESOL Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English (CAE).

This type of test assesses how well candidates understand the structure of the text and the development of the theme (so pay attention to demonstrative pronouns and adjectives, time references, sequence of verb tenses etc.)

You are going to read an extract from a magazine article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A â G the one which fits each gap (1-6). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

Good luck!

___________________________________

Tracking the mountain lion

Rupert Isaacson joins a volunteer project to protect mountain lions in Idaho, USA.

[test]
After two hours of trudging up the mountainside through deep snowdrifts, the dogs began to bark. There, in our path, was what weâd been looking for: the paw print of a mountain lion. It belonged to a female that had recently passed by. Kevin and Ken, the houndsmen, consulted briefly with John, the biologist, while the four hounds whimpered with excitement, straining at their leads, eager to begin the chase.
1 "D|A|B|C|E|F|G"
I carried one of the two rifles, followed by a pilot lugging measuring instruments, and a doctor and a postman struggling with cameras and radio antennae. Six others puffed and panted their way behind us, all of them â like me â professional cityfolk unused to such strenuous exertion.
2 "F|A|B|C|D|E|G"
When we finally caught up with the dogs they were bunched up at a rock, behind which an angry female mountain lion snarled and spat, swiping with its claws. We kept back, ready to run if it made a bid for freedom, while John crept down the mountain behind it. Having approached the lion quietly from below, he took his rifle from his bag, loaded it, took aim and shot.
3 "A|B|C|D|E|F|G"
We moved in, briskly efficient, photographing, measuring and weighing as John had taught us. Having changed the battery in its radio-collar, we brought the silken-coated creature round with an injection. Snarling and unsteady, it slunk away into cover and we began the long trek down the mountain.
4 "C|A|B|D|E|F|G"
However, our initial prejudices soon faded, as we realised the pair had more in common with us than weâd thought, and as the skill and dedication which they put into the project became apparent. This was most noticeable the next day, when our task was to provide a mother and cubs with new batteries in their collars. As we reached the point in the canyon where the pines grew thickest, suddenly a large male lion went streaking across the snowy plain. Ken and Kevin set off through the sagebrush.
5 "G|B|A|C|D|E|F"
While this was happening, Ken and Kevin crept up behind and tried to drop a pitifully small lasso â made from the dogsâ leads â over the lionâs head. Sensing their presence, the animal whirled around, slashing with its claws. I went in with the hounds again, and a surreal dance developed.
6 "B|A|C|D|E|F|G"
Of course it wasnât always so dramatic â many of our days in the mountains were quite mundane. But for me, the best thing about the trip was watching hunters and environmentalists sharing an adventure and putting money and energy into conservation, all the while showing that really they are two sides of the same coin.[/test]

_____________________________________________

HERE ARE THE PARAGRAPHS YOU CAN CHOOSE FROM:

A The dart hit the lioness in the back of the leg. It flinched, growled and then turned sleepily back to the hounds. Like a tiring boxer, its slashing movements became slower and slower until it slumped into the snow, unconscious.

B Finally, on the fifth or sixth try, the houndsmen managed to drop the restraint over the lionâs head and tie it around a sagebrush trunk. Quickly and efficiently they did the same with one of its hind legs, then I helped them to sit on the protesting lion until John arrived with the tranquilliser.

C On the way, John told me he had recruited Ken and Kevin, two hunters, to assist in the lion study because of their local knowledge. At first my fellow volunteers felt uncomfortable with this. How could these men kill animals one day, then try to protect them the next?

D The men exchanged nods, then bent down to set the animals loose. And with a whoop, they were off, bounding through the snow, leaving the rest of us to lumber after them, each laden with his allotted encumbrance.

E Kevin barely had time to reply before the lion reached out a massive paw and swiped at the rifle. With impressive speed, John seized his own rifle, and â what seemed like a split-second later â the creature lay motionless on the ground, a tranquilliser dart in its tawny side.

F This motley crew formed the ten-strong paying volunteer group taking part in a University of Idaho study into the effect of habitat fragmentation on wildlife. Our task was to radio-collar mountain lions and gather data on their feeding habits, with the ultimate aim of persuading state authorities to curb urban growth and adopt more wildlife-friendly forestry practices.

G They sprinted effortlessly over the rocky ground, while I stumbled along in their wake. After five kilometres we spotted the lion. âQuick,â said Ken, thrusting the houndsâ collars into my hand. âYou distract it for a moment.â Scarcely able to believe what I was doing, I found myself letting the straining dogs lunge at the lion just enough to make it come at us, then jumping back in time to avoid its claws.

Re: Teaching the Present Continuous

ayvied — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:55:46 GMT

when i teach the Present Continuous tense (elemenentary level) I usually ue these easy steps:

1. Introduce/ review the Verb BE, in it's different forms..AM, IS, ARE ( Present Tense)

2. Introduce/revi Personal Pronouns, I , HE, SHE, IT, WE, YOU, THEY.

3. Explain/expound the relationship of these two (the verb BE and the Personal Pronouns) when used in a sentence and give examples;
                I -       AM                       HE, SHE, IT - IS
                YOU   - ARE
                 WE    - ARE
                 THEY - ARE

Example:  HE IS dancing.

4. Introduce/review Verbs...ask for examples e.g   dance,

5.Explain how to from the Present Participle:Participles = VERB+ ING
example : dance+ ing= dancing (explain that the E in danceshould be dropped)

4. Now, you are ready to present your lesson on PRESENT CONTINUOUS: Define
    PRESENT CONTINUOUS = Verb BE + VERB+ ING (present participle)

example: He IS DANCING.

I hope this will help.

Re: 1)How can we correct the sentence:

Mister Micawber — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:25:12 GMT

The answer was e. But I have never seen a "because" after comma-- A comma can appear after because if the clause is less restrictive.

2) The meaning of his words was even more elusive in his own country than either Europe or Latin America ( the underscore is a wrong phrase)

Can we replace the underscored phrase with "either in Europe or Latin Am" or " in either Europe or Latin Am"?-- I'd use the latter, but something is fishy about your underlining.

3) On my preparing for exam, I came up with this sentence:

Spot the error:

Kelly is proud of her own abilities to mediate disputes more than any of her other strength. No error

The answer was C ( as the book says) but here is its explanation:

"Does the subordinate clause fit within the context of the sentenc? ( A) uses the correct verb tense and the verb agrees w/ subject Kelly. (B) shows the correct feminine sing. pronoun, referring to Kelly (C) shows the correct infi. form of the verb mediate.

So what is the answer??-- There are a lot of errors in what you typed. D is wrong.

4) here is part of a math question I couldn't find out why:

Which is the graph of y= -(x-2)2 (2 outside the bracket means square)?

Graphs drawn below.

And here was the solution:

If f(x) = -x2 , the given equation, y= -(x-2)2, represents f(x-2)

How come they got the last line?-- I have no idea. This is a grammar forum.

1)How can we correct the sentence:

Belly — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:19:06 GMT

1)How can we correct the sentence:

When the eggs hatch, the young turtles go off to take care of themselves, being that female turtles do not nurture their young

a) add "on the other hand" at the beginning

b) insert " as a result" at the bginning"

c) change the comma to semicolon

d) change "hatch" to "hatched"

e) change "being that"-> "because"

The answer was e. But I have never seen a "because" after comma

2) The meaning of his words was even more elusive in his own country than either Europe or Latin America ( the underscore is a wrong phrase)

Can we replace the underscored phrase with "either in Europe or Latin Am" or " in either Europe or Latin Am"?

3) On my preparing for exam, I came up with this sentence:

Spot the error:

Kelly is proud of her own abilities to mediate disputes more than any of her other strength. No error

The answer was C ( as the book says) but here is its explanation:

So what is the answer??

4) here is part of a math question I couldn't find out why:

Which is the graph of y= -(x-2)2 (2 outside the bracket means square)?

Graphs drawn below.

And here was the solution:

If f(x) = -x2 , the given equation, y= -(x-2)2, represents f(x-2)

How come they got the last line?

Re: Is "There is the ..." an exceptional use?

jazzmaster — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:27:58 GMT

CalifJim

Probably not. There may be a better way to finesse this with a different wording.
Yes, but from the viewpoint of the authors and the teacher, this may be considered a harmless "white lie".
Out of curiosity, does the book actually use the words, "serious grammatical error"? Or is that your impressionistic paraphrase?

Thanks CJ

"Serious grammatical error" is my paraphrase. But when and if ESL students start to expressly state "this IS an exceptional usage", I suppose that means "these is a set rule on this and no one can break that in any shape or form".

"the simplification of the grammar at the beginning makes it much easier for them to navigate the language with confidence in the beginning stages" ... I fully concur with your view here. This indeed is the ideal way of teaching something to someone, I would say. However, the reality is that they will soon start feeding what a SVOC is, along with modifier/qualifier, the difference between a relative pronoun and adverb and all that good stuff to students who even cannot pronounce the word "English" correctly yet. I have an impression that they do present "grammatically acceptable" sentence structures, rock-solid rules and what not all at once. It is not a fun way to learn a foreign language. That is why some students grow not to like the subject after short while.

Let's say you are in a store with a hardcore grammatical ESL student, and you say:
*&@!#% !! I just realized I left my wallet home!!
... in stead of saying "It's all right, CJ, here, take $100. You can pay me back tomorrow.", (granting that he/she understood what you said), the ESL student will be too busy thinking "Why did he not say "I HAD left my wallet"? Because he is describing an event that happened obviously prior to the moment "he realized", it should be the past perfect tense, thus "I HAD left". It could be an exceptional use of the "realize ... that ...." structure but I am not sure. Or should I just point out his grammatical mistake?" ... this is the mentality of students who are being taught by those hardcore grammar books, and I am not exaggertating even a bit.

Thanks.

Re: translation into English: text 11/03 (Patrick)

MrPedantic — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:10:37 GMT

Hello Hela, yes, it's nice to see you too! I'm not posting here much at the moment, because my pc is defective; but I hope to be re-kitted-out shortly...

Hela
Actually I wrote "he was leaving for Ireland for work", is it wrong too?

I think that would be ok too.

Hela
2) Do you accept
a) "he was going to work in Ireland as soon as
- his exams were [had been = wrong?] over
- he finished / had finished his exams

Yes, all fine except "had been".

Hela
b) "he was goint to work in Ireland right after
- he finished / had finished his exams
- he would finish / would have finished (?) his exams
- his exams would be / would have been (?) over"

- Is it also possible to use the present, even though it's reported speech, since the period referred to has not happened yet?

Only the first two versions. The present would be fine.

Hela
a) "he called me to say that he is going to Ireland as soon as
his exams are / have been (?) over OR he finishes / has finished (?) his exams

All ok except "have been over".

Hela
b) "he called me to say that he is going to Ireland right after
- he finishes / has finished his exams
- his exams will be over
- he will finish / will have finished his exams"

Only the first two.

Hela
3) Je ne me rappelles pas l'avoir entendu dire...
Are hearing and having heard both possible here? What's the nuance betwenn them?
"I don' / can't remember ever hearing / having heard (?) him talk about such daring plans"

I think it's a difference in focus: "hearing" is more immediate, "having heard" more remote. But I don't think it's a significant difference, for most users.

Hela
) Moi aussi j'aimerais beaucoup aller travailler en Irlande.
Which tenses should be used here, please?
a) I would quite / really like to work in Ireland as well (possible ?)
b) I wish I could work / I wish I worked in Ireland
c) I wish I went (?) to Ireland to work as well / too.

Not "quite"; and I would change it to "go to work in Ireland"; and for me, b) and c) wouldn't quite capture the original. (Expression of a wish, rather than a desire.)

Hela
5) Is this use of pronoun acceptable ?
"One doesn't want to let everybody know what they want to do" ? Is "they" ambiguous or incoherent here, or is it all right ?

If "they" refers to "one", it's a little unusual; I would repeat "one".

Hela
) On se connaÃ®t depuis si longtemps, lui et moi
Even though it is not necessary to translate "lui et moi" in English would you say:
"It has been a such a long time since we have known one another, he and I [and not "him/he and me" ?

Not "it has been a such a long time"; perhaps "We have known each other for such a long time". If you had to translate "lui et moi", "he and I" would best suit the register.

Hela
7) Il n'est pas nÃ©cessaire de mettre tout le monde au courant de ce qu'on a envie de faire. Il y a des tas de gens qui rÃªvent bruyamment d'accomplir de grandes choses et ne sortent jamais de chez eux. Quant Ã son niveau d'anglais, un sÃ©jour de deux mois ne peut que l'amÃ©liorer.

a) Would you translate this passage this way?

"you don't have to / you neednât / there's no need to tell everyone what youâre up to / want to do / feel like doing all the time. Lots of people dream aloud (?) about accomplishing / achieving (?) great things they're going to do and then never give it a try (?) / make it real (?). As for his English, a two-month stay / sojourn (?) in England can but / just (?) improve it.

That's a bit too difficult to answer, in that form â there are so many permutations!

Hela
b) What you meant by the following:
My idea would be as yours, except:

"...to keep everyone posted...have grandiose ideas about accomplishing great things but never leave home...can only improve it."

is that you would not use "to keep everyone posted", "have grandiose ideas..." and "can only improve it" ?

Sorry, I meant I would use those phrases instead, in the relevant parts.

Hela
What's the meaning of "to harp on about something" then? How would you use it?

If I say that you're harping on about X, I mean that you are obsessively talking about X, in an irritating and excessive way. (It sounds quite tetchy.)

Have a good Wednesday!

MrP

Re: this isn't the party I had expected

CalifJim — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:58:41 GMT

My ear accepts either one -- isn't or wasn't. The pronoun this seems to override the verb tense.

Anyway, only one of two parties is happening "now". The other is "the party I had expected" (earlier, when I was doing "the expecting").

Re: translation into English: text 11/03 (Patrick)

Hela — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:23:46 GMT

Good evening, Mr P, nice to read you again. I often ask questions on the site but you seem not to have seen my posts

I don't think it's necessary to translate "allait partir travailler" literally; "was going to leave to work" would sound too clumsy

Actually I wrote "he was leaving for Ireland for work", is it wrong too?

2) Do you accept
a) "he was going to work in Ireland as soon as
- his exams were [had been = wrong?] over
- he finished / had finished his exams

b) "he was goint to work in Ireland right after
- he finished / had finished his exams
- he would finish / would have finished (?) his exams
- his exams would be / would have been (?) over"

- Is it also possible to use the present, even though it's reported speech, since the period referred to has not happened yet?

a) "he called me to say that he is going to Ireland as soon as
his exams are / have been (?) over OR he finishes / has finished (?) his exams

b) "he called me to say that he is going to Ireland right after
- he finishes / has finished his exams
- his exams will be over
- he will finish / will have finished his exams"

3) Je ne me rappelles pas l'avoir entendu dire...
Are hearing and having heard both possible here? What's the nuance betwenn them?
"I don' / can't remember ever hearing / having heard (?) him talk about such daring plans"

4) Moi aussi j'aimerais beaucoup aller travailler en Irlande.
Which tenses should be used here, please?
a) I would quite / really like to work in Ireland as well (possible ?)
b) I wish I could work / I wish I worked in Ireland
c) I wish I went (?) to Ireland to work as well / too.

5) Is this use of pronoun acceptable ?
"One doesn't want to let everybody know what they want to do" ? Is "they" ambiguous or incoherent here, or is it all right ?

6) On se connaÃ®t depuis si longtemps, lui et moi
Even though it is not necessary to translate "lui et moi" in English would you say:
"It has been a such a long time since we have known one another, he and I [and not "him/he and me" ?

7) Il n'est pas nÃ©cessaire de mettre tout le monde au courant de ce qu'on a envie de faire. Il y a des tas de gens qui rÃªvent bruyamment d'accomplir de grandes choses et ne sortent jamais de chez eux. Quant Ã son niveau d'anglais, un sÃ©jour de deux mois ne peut que l'amÃ©liorer.

a) Would you translate this passage this way?

"you don't have to / you neednât / there's no need to tell everyone what youâre up to / want to do / feel like doing all the time. Lots of people dream aloud (?) about accomplishing / achieving (?) great things they're going to do and then never give it a try (?) / make it real (?). As for his English, a two-month stay / sojourn (?) in England can but / just (?) improve it.

b) What you meant by the following:

My idea would be as yours, except:

"...to keep everyone posted...have grandiose ideas about accomplishing great things but never leave home...can only improve it."

is that you would not use "to keep everyone posted", "have grandiose ideas..." and "can only improve it" ?

8)

("Harp on about" doesn't seem quite right here; I'm not sure about my "never leave home" â I feel there's a more natural alternative, but can't place it.)

What's the meaning of "to harp on about something" then? How would you use it?
Best regards,
Hela

Re: the middle voice option

Dawnstorm — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:09:34 GMT

Hi,

I'm really enjoying this. You're making me think.

I'm going to take your points out of sequence. I think I'm still replying to your post; if I misrepresent what you're saying, please correct me.

First, the summary of what I'm going to say: A lot depends on theory, and how you frame your terms. To me, ergativity in English is primarily a side topic to voice, and the only "marked" voice in English is the passive. All others rely on semantics and indirect evidence (such as your very detailled and useful post about the transitivity system in English). BUT: how do you frame the evidence there is systematically? In syntax? Make it part of the lexicon? In other words, what exactly is it that the term "ergative" adds to a combination of transitivity and lexical tagging? I'm still thinking about your suggestion to speak of "ergative structures" rather than "ergative verbs". This is an interesting approach, de-emphasising the lexicon in that respect; but I'm trying to ignore it for this post, mostly because I'm not done thinking it through.

Second, I think I've used the term "semantic" very loosely in my other post. There's reference, and then there's cognitive framing. (Or content and point of view.) The cognitive framing is harder to get at and interpret, mostly because these things aren't always immediately visible. We're talking about "ergative structures" in English, or the "middle voice", because we've noticed these constructions in other languages (Basque for ergativity; Ancient Greek for Middle voice; etc.). That is we have to strip away the structure and get down to the point-of-view meaning that the structures imply. And then we have to go back to English and look for expressions of said point-of-view meaning in this language. (Something similar is going on when linguists are probing "shall/will" along the lines of futurity/modality, within the discussion whether English has a future tense or not. The consensus is it doesn't, but the discussion - assuming "will/shall" as tense-modals - has been productive, if not conclusive.) But the thing is this: if you're bringing concepts to a language from outside (which is usual in comparative linguistics) you need an anchor; conventional structural methods - such as your "what syntactic operations yield well-formed usage?" approach - have their limitations. So do semantic (referential or framing). This makes ergativity/unaccusativity hard to think about, before you choose your approach.

Examples follow:

This is about the sentence, "He died a cruel death."

MrPedantic
The object here is a cognate object (it is implied in the verb itself) and thus belongs to a slightly different model. (I would say that it only exists to provide an adverbial opportunity: "he died a cruel death" = "he died in a cruel way".)

I agree that, framing-wise, the object functions much like an adverbial. But it's an "object" in syntax, which has implications that are incompatible with adverbials. Most relevant, here, "die" is now prone to passivisation.

"A cruel death was died," does sound odd (I'll get to it in a minute), but I wouldn't bat an eyelid at "Many deaths were died that night." Interestingly, it's hard to put this into the active voice, mostly because no subject seems appropriate. (?"The Soldiers died many deaths that night."; ?"The army died many deaths that night."...). To me, all the examples I can think of (plural nouns, collective nouns...) don't express the passive meaning. The closest I come is "Many people died that night." Anything else I can think of is of questionable grammaticality.

However, "A cruel death was died," although it sounds odd, doesn't sound ungrammatical in the least (at least not to me). It's also not a semantic problem; I understand the sentence perfectly well, both reference- and framingwise.

The reason, I think, this sounds odd is a pragmatic one. I think this one sounds odd because it's hard to find a context for this utterance that justifies the passive, which is a "marked construction". You generally expect "marked" constructions to be there for a reason. I suspect in the right context the above sentence would be perfectly fine. (It's a matter of Grice's conversational maxims, the maxim of manner, in particular.)

This is where the "frame-semantics" of syntactic constructions become complicated, I think. How do language structures tie in with cognitive structures (e.g. To what extent do we buy the Sapir-Worf hypothesis?)

So, from this I go to self-observation:

MrPedantic
and precisely because of that distinction, I would call "break" here ergative (ex. 5) , and "die" unaccusative (ex. 2).

See, I had the hardest time even to grasp what that meant, not now in this thread, but when I first discovered the distinction. That's because, learning English, I didn't train to see the difference. It wasn't necessary, as ergativity/unaccusativity isn't expressed through syntactic structures, but only indirectly through what operations are possible on the verb; this I pretty much took care off either through lexical list-tagging, or through collocation. If there is a hidden logic to it that I applied in learning, it never became conscious. (It's quite possible that I had a practical knowledge, but no discoursive one of this subject; but why, then, is it so hard to grasp?)

If we go back to the list and sift through the operations there, we'll find that "die" behaves different from "break" in the way we specified. But here's the catch: to apply that structural method, we have to assume that "break" in 5.a = "break" in 5.b = "break" in 5.c etc.; i.e. that "break" is the same lexical item in all these instances. That's because syntax has a hard time to differentiate between "signifier" and "signified", or "sign" and "concept".

Notice, for example, how your 5.a is already the transitive, while systematically it should be the intransitive agentive: 5.a *He broke. (i.e. "He caused/performed the action of breaking." as opposed to "He underwent the process of breaking," which is 5.b, now, and would be 5.c)

So I'd amend this, to:

5a. *He broke.

5b. He broke the plate

5c. The plate broke.

5d. The plate was broken.

5e. The broken plate

5f. The plate broke easily

And the comparison with "die" would be two-fold:

1. = sign; 2. = concept

5.1a He died.

5.2a He killed.

5.1b *He died the man.

5.2b He killed the man

5.1c The man died.

5.2c *The man killed.

5.1d *The man was died.

5.2d The man was killed.

5.1e *The died man [cf. The dead man.]

5.2e The killed man.

5.1f The man died easily. (<-- What's the difference to 5.1a? Should I add an * before it, as this is out of place, here?)

5.2f *The man killed easily. (<-- Is this not available, because 5.1f is available?)

5.1a, 5.1c, and 5.1f seem to be much the same. And this is the problem I have systematising a structural comparison. One possibility, I see is to re-cast 5a as reflexive 1. *He died himself./2. He killed himself. I might try to justify this through dying being a process you undergo, thus if you add an agentive/causative to core meaning (which is not in slot a, but in slot c) the verb becomes by necessity reflexive ("He caused himself to die.")

But these things are all a bit... tentative. I fear it's more rationalised than rational, if you get my drift.

[Interesting aside: you used the term "anticausative" alongside "ergative" and "unaccusative" for break in your thread. Bears repeating, as it's something I'm also still thinking about; a very interesting concept I haven't come across yet.]

MrPedantic
But I find a semantic difference too: the first presents the sign from the point of view of the reader, and the second, from the point of view of the writer.

Now, that's an interesting observation. I'd argue that the semantic difference is not referential (it refers to the same state of affairs), but it's a framing difference. If we view the sign as a proxy for the agent, we're importing the difference of active vs. voice into a construction that's free of the syntactic properties that normally accompany this framing device in English. "Reads," then, is ergative, while "says is a straightforward accusative verb (one that takes the accusative (which isn't marked in English - except, perhaps, for pronouns, where it's indistinguishable - morphologically - from the dative; the conventional term would be "direct object").

MrPedantic
Also, although the same few verbs tend to recur as examples in these discussions, actual usage is more imaginative.

That's what makes language so fascinating, isn't it? Nice example, there, too.

Re: he is gone. What tense is being used? Is that simple present tense?

Anonymous — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:08:44 GMT

Â I think it's a big mistake because the verb after theÂ auxiliaryÂ is in the pastÂ participle,Â it means that theÂ auxiliary should be 'has' Â (the verbÂ 'to have' in the present) instead of 'is' (the verbÂ 'to be' Â in the present. its aÂ commonÂ mistake and it's a confusion of the contracted form of this sentence (He's gone) witch is He has gone, the ('s) after the pronoun (He) is taken as the contrected from of (is).Â