Thursday, May 25, 2017

C1 24-25/5/17

It's been great sharing the ride with you, thank you!!!!

Check the activities about Jamie Oliver and Graduate careers on the Moodle Platform.

While it is common to form adverbs by adding "-ly" to adjectives, there are plenty of adjectives that end in "-ly", usually by adding it to nouns: lovely, shapely, orderly, homely, etc. There are also examples of other words that function as both, especially adverbs of frequency. Hourly can be used as both an adverb and an adjective. So can daily, weekly, monthly, etc.

Here are a few more to add:
Bubbly, curmudgeonly, prickly, comely, manly, deadly, silly, chilly

cur‧mud‧geon /kɜːˈmʌdʒən $ kɜːr-/ noun[countable] old-fashioned  someone who is often annoyed or angry, especially an old person

gnarl‧y /ˈnɑːli $ ˈnɑːr-/ adjective  
1 a gnarly tree or branch is rough and twisted with hard lumps SYN gnarled
2 gnarly hands or fingers are twisted, rough, and difficult to move, usually because they are old SYN gnarled
3 American English spoken a word meaning very good or excellent, used by young people 
‘Look at the size of that wave.’ ‘Gnarly!’
4 American English spoken a word meaning very bad, used by young people
 a gnarly car wreck

A model of an outline for the oral exam

Extreme sports:


Sports we normally practise

Bear in mind…
Jogging, canicross, tennis, football…
However ,although…
There’s no point

Sports we would like to p

What I... the most
Therefore, admitedly
Skiing, parachuting, bungee jumping,
By and large

Sports we wouldn’t p.
Definitely, in spite of, regardless of

It’s said to be
Surfing in shark infested waters, free soloing, skydiving with a wingsuit...

Had I...

Possessives or compound nouns?

We can demonstrate the link between two nouns either by using possessive forms (the US bank's finance division / the finance division of the US bank) or compound nouns (the US bank finance division). Sometimes all three are possible, as here. Sometimes one form is more likely than another.

Possessive forms: 's or of ?

We normally use the genitive or possessive 's structure when we are referring to ownership and possession, people and animals, personal and professional relationships, or the origin of something in a country or organisation:

Mark's uncle has just bought a Porsche Boxter.

Mark's Uncle Frank is Sheila's oldest brother.

Pig's liver is full of iron and vitamins.

He has strange tastes: he prefers goat's milk to cow's milk.

Stan's new secretary is not even computer literate.

The company's difficulties should not be underestimated.

Scotland's natural beauty is on a par with Finland's.



In examples relating to country and organisations, i.e. things which are inanimate, both forms are often possible:

The policy of the company / the company's policy is to recruit staff from all EU countries.

Poland's history / the history of Poland illustrates the art of survival against the odds. 

We also use the possessive 's to express certain ideas relating to time:

New Year's Day falls on a Saturday in 2005.

Last Saturday's match was fully reported in last Sunday's News of the World.

There was twenty minutes' delay before the plane could take off.

Disneyland was seven hours' drive from where we were staying.

Compound nouns are sometimes also possible here:

Our son so much wanted to go to Disneyland that we had to resign ourselves to a seven-hour journey.

A ten-minute delay was acceptable, but a three-hour delay wasn't.

Note that although we talk about New Year's Day all other special days in the calendar are formed with compound nouns: Christmas DayBoxing DayGood FridayEaster DayBank Holiday Monday, etc. When talking about resolutions, it can be either New Year resolutions (more likely) or New Year's resolutions (less likely).
Note that when we refer to a specific date, the of structure is used:

Holidaymakers suffering from that stomach bug on board the cruise ship, the Aurorra - this was reported in The Sunday Times of 25 November 2003.

Over one hundred Renaissance paintings were destroyed in the earthquake of 1926. 

Compound nouns (noun + noun)

Note the frequency of compound nouns in the previous two examples - holidaymakers, stomach bug, cruise ship, Sunday Times, Renaissance paintings, earthquake. When we use compound nouns like these, the first noun has the same function as a classifying adjective - it tells or describes the nature of the second noun:

This shoe shop sells sports shoes.

Communication skills teachers sometimes teach computer studies.

Compound nouns are particularly useful in newspaper headlines and reports as they enable a lot of information to be summarised quickly:

Premiership footballers on a winter break in Spain may face gang-rape allegation charges.


Nouns as Modifiers

A noun can modify another noun by coming immediately before the noun that follows it. As a modifier, the first noun tells us a bit more about the following noun. When a noun acts as a modifier, it is in its singular form.

They do not have vegetable soup, but they do have chicken soup and tomato soup.
In the sentence, the nouns vegetable, chicken and tomato are modifiers. They modify soup. Without the modifiers, we would not know what soup they have or do not have. All we would know is they have soup.


We need to use a modifying word such as an adjective or a noun, attributively (before a noun) to add to the meaning of the noun being modified. For example, we know what a ship is, but do we know what type of ship it is or what it is used for? By using a word, especially a noun acting as an adjective, before the noun ship we get to know what ship it is – a battleship, cargo ship, container ship, cruise ship, merchant ship, sailing ship, spaceship, or supply ship, or even an enemy ship or a pirate ship.


Other examples:

Business/girls’/language/village school – She is a teacher in a language school.
Corner/gift/pet/shoe shop – The gift shop offers a small selection of leather goods.
Family/farm/pet/police/sheep/sniffer/toy dog – The police dog was sniffing round the detainee's heels.
Council/country/dream/farm/mansion/tree/summer house – They rented a council house when they got married.


More examples:

We are renovating the old farm buildings after they were gutted by fire.
They spent the weekends doing the vegetable garden.
She kept her money box under her bed.
A car bomb went off, injuring a dozen people.
He lay in the hospital bed reading a library book.


When a noun used as a modifier is combined with a number expression, the noun is singular and a hyphen is used.

Examples:

They built their own half-timbered house overlooking the river.
He does a one-man show in a open-air theatre. / His one-man business is expanding fast.
The pilot overshot the runway and crashed his two-seater aircraft.
The three-day horse-riding event will take place next week.
They lived in a four-bedroom house in the suburbs.
She plays in a five-girl rock band.
He will have to serve a six-year sentence for burglaries.
He got a seven-month contract to work on an offshore oilrig.
The historic eight-room mansion stands in 60 acres of parkland.

The 100-year-old mansion stands in 60 acres of parkland.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

C1 22-23/5/17

p.141


mind you (also mind) British English used when saying something that is almost the opposite of what you have just said, or that explains or emphasizes it
He looks very young in this photo. Mind you, it was taken years ago.
I love hot weather, but not too hot, mind.
I don’t say I wanna live there, mind you.
u name it

bleak-> cold and without any pleasant or comfortable features
sparse-> existing only in small amounts
monotonous
cloudless
snow-capped
rustic /ˈrʌstɪk/
night-time
rolling
lush-> plants that are lush grow many leaves and look healthy and strong
rich
open
idyllic /ɪˈdɪlɪk, aɪ- $ aɪ-/

ex‧panse /ɪkˈspæns/ noun [countable]  a very large area of water, sky, land etc
expanse of
an expanse of blue sky
vast/wide/large etc
expanse the vast expanse of the ocean

blot noun [countable] 
1 a mark or dirty spot on something, especially made by ink ink blots
2 a building, structure etc that is ugly and spoils the appearance of a place
The new power station is a blot on the landscape.
3 something that spoils the good opinion that people have of someone or somethingblot on
The increase in juvenile crime is a blot on our time.

I don’t go in for the chocolate box vista

plough (also plow American English) /plaʊ/ noun [countable] 
1 a piece of farm equipment used to turn over the earth so that seeds can be planted
2 → under the plough

Wilderness /ˈwɪldənəs $ -dər-/ ●●○ noun [countable usually singular] 
1 a large area of land that has never been developed or farmed
 the Alaskan wilderness

p. 143

be instrumental in (doing) something
formal to be important in making something happen 
He was instrumental in developing links with European organizations.


Intensifying but to a limited degree with a gradation

Fairly -> quite -> pretty -> rather

Thursday, May 18, 2017

C1 17-18/5/17

p. 133

Adjectives and verbs ending in -ate:
adequate  
appoximate
articulate 
degenerate 
deliberate  
desolate  
duplicate  
elaborate  
intimate  
legitimate  
moderate
separate

articulate /ɑːˈtɪkjələt $ ɑːr-/ ●○○ adjective 
1 able to talk easily and effectively about things, especially difficult subjects opp inarticulate bright, articulate 17-year-olds a highly articulate speaker

tomato/təˈmɑːtəʊ/, tomato/ tə ˈmeɪtoʊ/

Saying years in English:
two thousand thirteen (2) two thousand and thirteen (3) twenty thirteen
(1) two thousand ten (2) two thousand and ten (3) twenty ten
two thousand eight (2) two thousand and eight
(1) nineteen oh two (2) nineteen hundred (and) two
seven sixty-three (2) seven hundred (and) sixty-three

INVERSION IN CONDITIONAL SENTENCES

Had it not rained

Yes, it is correct that we cannot use a contracted negative form when we use inverted word order to express unreal or impossible condition in the past. Instead, we are obliged to use the full form of not:

Had it not rained last Saturday, we would've celebrated Tom's birthday with a barbecue in the garden.

Had you not refused my invitation, you would've had the best holiday ever.

Of course, had we used the more normal if-clause to express this conditional idea, the contracted negative form would have been the norm:

If only it hadn't rained last Saturday, we would've had a wonderful holiday in the garden.

If you hadn't been so stupid as to refuse my invitation, you could've travelled to see all the wonders of the world.

Note that we use these tense forms to talk about something that might have happened, but didn't:

If it had stayed fine, they would've celebrated the birthday in the garden.

If she had accepted the invitation, she would've seen all the wonders of the world.

Should you not wish to

Note that we can also use the inversion structure with should when we are talking about present and future conditions and, again, negative forms are not contracted:

Should you not wish to sign the contract, you must let them know before the end of June. (If you should not wish… / If you don’t wish…)

Should you change your mind about selling the car, I'd be happy to buy it from you.

Note that use of should here has nothing to do with obligation, but is simply an alternative to the present simple in the more normal if-clause:

If you don't want to go ahead and sign the contract, please try to let them know before the end of this month.

If you (do) change your mind about selling the car, I'd be happy to buy it from you.

Were we to have children

Finally, inversion is possible, though I think less common, with this form of the conditional when we are talking about the improbable future. Again negative forms are not contracted:

Were we to have children, we'd need to move to a bigger house. (If we had children…)

Were she not my daughter, I'd have no hesitation in phoning the police. (If she wasn’t…)

The more normal if-clause is here quite straightforward:

If we were to have children, we'd certainly need to move to a larger house.

If she weren't my daughter, I'd have no hesitation in phoning the police and telling them about the crime that has been committed.

We use the inversion strategy when we want what we are saying to sound more carefully considered and it is also characteristic of more formal and literary styles.


In your example, Mr Smolin, we can also use the construction But for..., meaning Except for?, as an alternative to Had it not been for? or Were it not for?:

Had it not been for his foresight in ensuring everybody had lifejackets, everyone on board would have drowned.

Were it not for your kindness, I'd still be living in that tiny bed-sit in the town centre.

But for his foresight, everyone on board the yacht /jɒt $ jɑːt/would have drowned. ( If it wasn’t for his foresight…)

But for your kindness, I'd still be stuck in that tiny flat in the town centre. (If it wasn’t for your kindness…)


MIXED CONDITIONALS

When we talk about mixed conditionals, we are referring to conditional sentences that combine two different types of conditional patterns. These combinations are not all that frequent, but the most common combination is when we have a type 3 conditional in the if-clause (if + past perfect) followed by a type 2 conditional (would + infinitive) in the main clause.

MIXED THIRD / SECOND CONDITIONAL

With this combination we are contrasting an imagined or real event in the past with the present result of that. Consider these examples:

If he'd taken the medication as prescribed, he wouldn't still be lying sick in bed.

If she'd taken reasonable precautions, she wouldn't be pregnant now.

If he hadn't run after the car thief and suffered a heart attack, he'd probably be alive today.

Note that we can also convey the same idea of past event and present result by using type 3 conditional (if + past perfect, would've + past participle) in both clauses

If he'd taken the medication as the doctor ordered, he would've recovered by now.

If she'd taken reasonable precautions, she wouldn't have got herself pregnant.

If he hadn't run after the car thief and suffered a heart attack, he wouldn't have collapsed and died.

Note that we use this type of conditional when we regret past action or inaction.

MIXED SECOND / THIRD CONDITIONAL

The other possibility, though I think this is less common, is when we have a type 2 conditional in the if-clause (if + past simple) followed by a type 3 conditional (would've + past participle) in the main clause.

With this combination, we are describing ongoing circumstances in relation to a previous past event. Consider these examples:

If you weren't such a poor dancer, you would've got a job in the chorus line in that musical.

If you weren't so blind to his faults, you would've realised that he was out to swindle you.

He's old enough to come home by himself, but can you just see him across the busy road?

FIRST CONDITIONAL

if + present simple, will + infinitive:

If I wait for Jane, I'll be late for school

This is the pattern that we most frequently associate with the first conditional, referring to future possibility or probability. But note that other patterns are also possible: we can have a modal verb, typically can, may or should, in the if-clause or main clause, as well as going to future or present continuous future. Present perfect is also possible in the if-clause. Consider these examples:

If you can't understand the instructions, you'll never be able to assemble the wardrobe.

If I give you ten pounds, could you get me some wine at the supermarket?

If you've finished the work I gave you, you may go home now.

If the weather's good on Sunday, we're going to have a picnic in Hyde Park.

If you're going to write him a cheque, make sure there's enough money in your account to cover it.

If you're coming clubbing with us tonight, you'd better get ready now.

In this final example, note that had better is not a past tense. It refers to the immediate future and we use it to give strong advice as the preferred alternative to must, ought to or should.

if you should… / if you happen to…

Note that we use should in the if-clause in the first conditional if we want to suggest that something is very unlikely. We can use happen to in a similar way or even combine them:

If you should / happen to change your mind about coming to the beach tomorrow, give me a ring.

I don't expect him to, but if he should happen to show up, whatever you do, don't let him in!

p. 134

in the blink of an eye->very quickly

wink /wɪŋk/ ●●○ verb 
1 [intransitive, transitive] to close and open one eye quickly to communicate something or show that something is a secret or joke
wink at
He winked mischievously at Erica.
He winked an eye at his companion.

be on the move
a) to be travelling from one place to another
The rebel army is on the move.
b) to be busy and active
Roy is constantly on the move.
c) to be changing and developing a lot, especially in a way that improves things
Museums are on the move, adding exhibits that entertain and educate.

step/move up a gear UK informal
to start to do something better, especially in sports, in a way that is easy to see:
After a disappointing first half, United moved up a gear and took control of the game.

ˌtop ˈgear noun [uncountable] British English  1 the highest gear of a car, bus etc
in top gear
The car will cruise at 80 mph in top gear.

move the goalposts UK informal disapproving
to change the rules while someone is trying to do something in order to make it more difficult for them:
We'd almost signed the contract when the other guys moved the goalposts and said they wanted more money.

sew uk ​ /səʊ/ us ​ /soʊ/
bookworm noun [ C ] uk /ˈbʊk.wɜːm/ us /ˈbʊk.wɝːm/ informal
A person who reads a lot

p.141

ˈbaking ˌsoda noun [uncountable]  a powder used when baking cakes to make them lighter
syn bicarbonate of soda



Tuesday, May 16, 2017

C1 15-16/5/17


Homework: writing activity p.149


p.136


sensitive /ˈsensətɪv/ ●●○ S3 W3 adjective 
1 UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE able to understand other people’s feelings and problems OPP  insensitive
- A sensitive and intelligent young man
Sensitive to
- It’s made me much more sensitive to the needs of the disabled.
2 EASILY OFFENDED easily upset or offended by events or things that people say
- a very sensitive child
sensitive about
- Laura’s sensitive about her weight.
sensitive to
- Throughout her career she remained very sensitive to criticism.
sensitive soul British English (=someone who is easily upset by small or unimportant things)
→ hypersensitive

Sensible /ˈsensəbəl/ ●●○ S3 W3 adjective 
1 reasonable, practical, and showing good judgment
 She seems very sensible.
 sensible advice
- It’s sensible to keep a note of your passport number.
- Moving house seemed like the sensible thing to do.

susceptible
adjective UK /səˈsep.tɪ.bl̩/ US
- Easily influenced or harmed by something
propenso
She isn’t very susceptible to flattery.
These plants are particularly susceptible to frost.
Among particularly susceptible children, the disease can develop very fast.
- used to describe someone who is easily emotionally influenced
susceptible
They persuade susceptible teenagers to part with their money.
- formal (especially of an idea or statement) able to be understood, proved, explained, etc. in a particular way
susceptible
Shakespeare’s plays are susceptible to various interpretations.
uk The facts are susceptible of other explanations.


merchandising /ˈmɜːtʃəndaɪzɪŋ $ ˈmɜːr-/ noun [uncountable] 
1 toys, clothes, and other products relating to a popular film, sports team, singer etc
 The concerts generated £3 million in ticket and merchandising sales.

Good to see you
go in straight away
u look troubled
attitude to time keeping
more laid-back attitude
Start meeting on the right note
Not quite there yet
Get another person in to look at it
That came out wrong
Merchandise for classic characters
Don’t think me rude
Playgroup leader
Funny mental picture

"Don't push in! / Don't cut in line!" / "Don't butt in line!" / "Don't jump the queue!"

VERBS
put the brakes on (=use the brakes) Put the brakes on – you’re going too fast.
apply the brakes formal (=use them)Apply the brakes as you approach the roundabout.
slam on/jam on/hit the brakes (=use them suddenly and with a lot of force)The car in front stopped suddenly and I had to slam on the brakes.
release the brake (=stop using the foot or hand brake) The traffic lights turned green and I released the brake.
brakes fail (=do not work when you use them)Going down the mountain I was afraid the brakes might fail.
brakes screech (=make a high noise when you use them)The brakes screeched and the train finally stopped.


One man's meat is another man's poison


p. 139

coaster /ˈkəʊstə $ ˈkoʊstər/ noun [countable] 
1 a small thin object on which you put a glass, or cup, to protect a table from heat or liquids

The clips and the buckles of a sit car

scour /skaʊə $ skaʊr/ verb [transitive] 
1 to search very carefully and thoroughly through an area, a document etc
scour something for something
 Her family began to scour the countryside for a suitable house.


au‧to‧ma‧ted /ˈɔːtəmeɪtɪd $ ˈɒː-/ AWL adjective  using computers and machines to do a job, rather than people → automation a highly automated factory The production process is now fully automated.