PRACTICE 6

VIII. Fill in each blank with a suitable word:

1. The weather was so bad we'd have been  off staying at home.
2. We were in a hurry so we had to make  with a quick snack.
3. They voted in   of the prohibition of smoking in public areas.
4.  in mind that some of the children will need extra help.
5. He would  and turn late into the morning before a big game.
6. She's over eighty now, but still as as a fiddle.
7. Potted plants always die with me. I'm afraid I haven't got green  .
8. I'm all fingers and  today. That's the second plate I've dropped
this morning.
9. I have no ambitions  than to have a happy life and be free.
10. There was a great  of applause when the dance ended.
11. One day, out of the  , she announced that she was leaving.
12. Life is sad at  , but it is up to you to make your own life happy.
13. The show was on the  of being canceled due to low ratings.
14. The children were out in the playground letting off  .
[Link] was found  of driving without due care and attention.
16. They've been trying to come to  with what's happened ever
since.
17. I've offered to paint the kitchen in  for a week's
accommodation.
18. His name's on the tip of my  , but I just can't think of it.
19. I can’t work properly on an   stomach.

IX. Fill in each blank with a suitable preposition:

1. Cold drinks are  demand in the summer.

2. I'm having trouble paying attention - I have a thing or two  my mind.
3. Why you let her talk you into doing such a foolish thing is  my
comprehension.
4. Please refrain  smoking in the restaurant.
5. My father was a genius  storytelling.
6. They had enough money to live in comfort  their old age.
7. She roared  laughter when she saw what he was wearing.
8. What you said may be true enough, but it is  the point.
9. We should,  brief, invest heavily in digital systems.
10. The local council is  charge of repairing roads.
11. Many homeless teenagers resort  stealing when their money runs out.
12. There is to be a total ban   smoking in the office.
13. The factory was closed for failing to comply   government safety
regulations.
14. The hijackers eventually surrendered themselves   the police.
15. Mary was surprisingly tolerant   his annoying habits.

X. Think of ONE word only which can be used approximately in all three
sentences.

1. Your answer is: .

 I ___________ if I might have a drink.

 The sight of the Taj Mahal filled us with ___________.
 No ___________ you’ve got a headache, the amount you drank last
night.

2. Your answer is: .

 It’s hoped the talks may bring an ___________ to the violence.

 The festival will ___________ with a spectacular laser show.
 I was at a loose ___________ so I decided to go see an old movie.

3. Your answer is: .

 Stern put Travis in ___________ of the research team.

 They're going to ___________ him with dangerous driving.
 Small shops ___________ much higher prices for the same products.

4. Your answer is: .

 It’s been a hard few months, but we’re finally beginning to see the
___________ at the end of the tunnel.
 She had blue eyes and ___________ brown hair.
  We searched around for twigs and fallen branches, so we could
___________ a fire.

5. Your answer is: .

 Would you please ___________ your ticket to the man at the door?
 Does anyone have a watch with a second ___________?
 Don’t worry, help is at ___________!

6. Your answer is: .

 While she was in France she developed a ___________ for fine wines.

___________ your eggs before you put salt on them.

 I never drink beer, I just don't like the ___________.

7. Your answer is: .

 Roy was standing only a few ___________ away.

 The authority will take ___________ to reunite the child and his family.
 If you follow all the ___________, nothing will go wrong.

8. Your answer is: .

 Grandma’s out ___________ the dog.

 There are plenty of bars and restaurants within ___________ distance of
the hotel.
 After the delivery of her baby, she was ___________ on air.

9. Your answer is: .

 The radio station is on ___________ from 6 a.m.

 She has an ___________ of confidence about her.
 He'll ___________ his views on the war whether people want to listen or
not.

10. Your answer is: .

  We'll have to spend the night here, so we might as well make the
___________ of it.
 The beaches are beautiful, but, ___________ of all, there are very few
tourists.
 It's ___________ to get to the supermarket early.

XI. You are going to read a magazine article about Khan Academy, an online
project. For questions 1–5, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think
fits best according to the text

The man who wants to teach the world

Helena de Bertodano meets Salman Khan.

What Salman Khan, the founder of the non-profit online school Khan Academy
has to say to the parent of an eleven-year-old in the USA is frankly terrifying: ‘If
your child is not placed in the fast track for math in sixth grade, his chances of
becoming a doctor or an engineer are probably zero. And it’s decided when he’s
eleven years old.’

This is exactly what happened to his cousin Nadia. Usually a straight-A student,
she had done poorly in a maths streaming test in sixth grade because she had failed
to understand one concept. This one test result, Khan says, might have harmed her
academic destiny. Nadia’s distraught mother turned to Khan for help. Khan tutored
her remotely over the phone and Nadia passed her retake with flying colours. Soon,
many more relations and friends wanted Khan’s help. Unable to handle the volume
of requests, at the suggestion of a friend, he started to record his lessons on video
and post them on YouTube. ‘At first I was dismissive,’ Khan says. ‘I thought
YouTube was for dogs on skateboards.’

Now Khan has more than 3,000 videos to his name, which are watched by nearly
three million unique users a month, via YouTube and his own website. His
friendly, avuncular style, coupled with his knack for making difficult concepts
seem simple, has helped children – and adults – all over the world move into the
fast track. He says his aim is to create ‘the world’s first free, world-class, virtual
school where anyone can learn anything’. Some teachers are wary of him, thinking
that he is trying to supplant them, but many more embrace his approach and have
started ‘flipping’ the classroom, encouraging students to watch Khan’s videos at
home and then tackling maths problems together in class.

You might expect a man with such influence to have state-of-the-art headquarters
but Khan’s premises are unprepossessing. Arriving at an unmarked red door,
sandwiched between a clothes shop and a Chinese restaurant, I decide I have the
wrong address – especially after ringing the bell for ten minutes with no response.
Eventually, I rouse someone on the telephone and the door is opened. When his
assistant shows me in, Khan appears at first to be slightly annoyed at this
interruption. Sitting on a leather swivel chair behind a heavy oak desk surrounded
by pictures of his wife – a doctor – and their two young children, he continues to
work for a few minutes. But once he warms up, it becomes clear that the initial
awkwardness is down to shyness, not rudeness. ‘I’m not very good when people
want to meet me,’ he says. ‘I want to hide a little bit.’

Khan believes that the rigidity of the school system is outdated and deadens a
child’s natural curiosity. ‘Aged one to four, kids are excited by anything new, they
want to figure it out, then all of a sudden, when they turn five, you start seeing
fewer curious kids, by nine or ten you see very few with any curiosity, and by
eighteen it’s very much the exception. Curiosity is just stamped out of them. I’m
convinced it’s indoctrination, not a genetic thing. Kids are herded together, the bell
rings, you’re rewarded for passivity, you’re rewarded for compliance, that’s what
keeps you moving through the system.’

Private school education makes little difference, he says. Nor does he believe that
student-teacher ratio is an issue. ‘The idea that smaller classes will magically solve
the problem of students being left behind is a fallacy. ’ As he points out, if a
teacher’s main job is lecturing to the students, it doesn’t really matter how many
students are in the classroom. What matters is the ‘student-to-valuable-human-
time-with-teacher’ ratio. What his videos do, Khan says, is free teachers up for
more personal interaction.

He thinks bigger classes with more teachers would provide a more creative
learning ground. In his ideal classroom there would be 75-100 students of widely
varying ages, with three or four teachers. Some students would be working at
computers; others would be learning economics through board games; others
would be building robots or designing mobile apps; others would be working on art
or creative writing. His dream is nothing short of revolutionary.‘

In 500 years I hope people look back and say, “Imagine, kids had to learn in
classrooms that were like factories and it was unheard of for an eight-year-old to
truly, deeply understand quantum physics. Isn’t that strange?

1. Why did Khan initially start to record videos?

a.  It enabled him to advertise his services worldwide.
b. It was a more popular medium for young people to use.
c. It was impossible for him to respond personally to each request for
assistance.
d. It was easier to explain concepts in a video than on the phone.
2. One value of the videos is that they can ____________.
a. act as a substitute for formal learning.
b. be used as an additional tool for teachers in class.
c. be shown to students as a reward for hard work.
d. help students prepare for a topic they will study. 
3. When visiting Khan the writer is ____________.
a. embarrassed by the way Khan addresses him.
b. annoyed by Khan’s lateness.
c. impressed by the style of furnishings in Khan’s home.
d. surprised by Khan’s choice of location.
4. The writer mentions different children’s ages to illustrate his idea that
____________.
a. the older a child is, the less able they are to assimilate new information.
b. younger children need more motivation to remain interested in education.
c. it is quite natural for children to grow disillusioned with formal education.
d. a child’s growing lack of interest in learning is a result of experience at
school.
5. When Khan compares classrooms to factories in the final paragraph, he is
implying that ____________.
a. teaching methodology produced student clones.
b. small numbers of teachers dealt with large numbers of students.
 c. children were part of an inflexible system.
d. classrooms produced what industry demanded.

[Link] are 10 mistakes in the following text. Find and correct them.
Underline the mistakes and write the answers in the blanks provided.

2020 - A year we will never forget (31st December, 2020)

(1) For billion of people around the world, January the 1st, 2020 seemed like a
great day. It was the start of a year that sounded like science fiction - 2020. Many
people had great hopes for the year ahead. (2) Little knew what a rollercoaster ride
2020 would be and how the world would change. The year has been dominated by
the COVID-19 pandemic. (3) This has brought hundreds of thousands of deaths,
economical chaos, lockdowns and masked populations. (4) Other huge event was
the death of George Floyd at the hands of U.S. police in July. This sparked the
Black Lives Matter movement and global protests. (5) The year ended with Joe
Biden being voted in as the President-elect of the USA.

Different people will have different memories of 2020. (6) Our reporters asked
people around the world to tell us how they will remember 2020 for. Ahmed
Hussein from Lebanon said he would never forget the massive explosion at a
Beirut port in August that killed at least 190 people. (7) He said he thanked God
none of his family or friends were hurt, and was sad at the destruction of his city.
(8) Lucy Baxter, a nurse in the UK, said her happy moment came with the news of
the vaccines for COVID-19. (9) She said she could see light at the ending of a long
and dark tunnel. (10) Ayumi Miyamoto of Japan was saddened by the
postponement of the Tokyo Olympics but is happy they will go by in 2021. She
said 2021 would be a good year.

1.

2.

3.

4.
5.