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ESL Easy Quiz - On the Job - English Professions (Questions)

Quiz playing is a wonderful way to increase your knowledge of English as a Second Language. Remember that all of our ESL quizzes have titles that are both friendly and technical at the same time… In the case of this quiz you might like to tell your friends about “On the Job” but no doubt your teachers will talk about the “English Professions quiz”! If you hear a technical term and you want to find a quiz about the subject then just look through the list of quiz titles until you find what you need.

Most of us need to work, to bring in money and earn a living: perhaps that's why you are learning English. There are lots of words to describe English professions, including the things we need, do and make. This quiz will help you look at some terms used in English professions.

1. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
A baker is someone who spends most of his time making, and selling, ...
[ ] ... meat.
[ ] ... fruit and vegetables.
[ ] ... bread (and possibly, cakes).
[ ] ... clothes.
2. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
If you can see a lot of doctors and nurses, you are probably inside ...
[ ] ... a church.
[ ] ... a hospital.
[ ] ... a university.
[ ] ... a prison.
3. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
My little sister has always loved animals. She is studying biology, and she hopes to go to ... ... to become ... ...
[ ] ... college ... / ... an animal doctor.
[ ] ... college ... / ... a vet.
[ ] ... university ... / ... a vet.
[ ] ... university ... / ... a veterinary surgeon.
4. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
A shopkeeper may work in a specialist shop (such as a hardware shop), or in a much bigger ...
[ ] ... buying house.
[ ] ... department store.
[ ] ... multiple retail outlet.
[ ] ... large all-purpose shop.
5. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
Someone who does a lot of work using a tractor is probably a ...
[ ] ... pharmacist.
[ ] ... farmer.
[ ] ... motor mechanic.
[ ] ... train driver.
6. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
Someone who designs buildings is ... ... , but a person that designs and makes and mends machinery is ... ... .
[ ] ... a engineer ... / ... a architect.
[ ] ... an engineer ... / ... an architect.
[ ] ... a architect... / ... a engineer.
[ ] ... an architect... / ... an engineer.
7. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
A journalist may be reporting for ...
[ ] ... a national newspaper.
[ ] ... television or the papers.
[ ] ... a local magazine.
[ ] ... television, radio, the press or online.
8. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
Someone who spends most of their day in the kitchen is probably working as ...
[ ] ... waiter in cafe.
[ ] ... chef in restaurant.
[ ] ... a chef in a restaurant
[ ] ... a waitress in a cafe.
9. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
In lots of jobs, people do the same thing 'over and over again'. But that could mean very different things to ...
[ ] ... actor, bus driver, factory worker.
[ ] ... a actor, a bus driver, a factory worker.
[ ] ... a actor, a bus driver or a factory worker.
[ ] ... an actor, a bus driver or a factory worker.
10. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
My wife works in a shop, and I work as a teacher in a primary school. When we come home in the evenings we are both tired from ...
[ ] ... handling money all day.
[ ] ... standing up and smiling at people all day.
[ ] ... looking at books all day.
[ ] ... listening to children all day.
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ESL Easy Quiz - On the Job - English Professions (Answers)
1. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
A baker is someone who spends most of his time making, and selling, ...
[ ] ... meat.
[ ] ... fruit and vegetables.
[x] ... bread (and possibly, cakes).
[ ] ... clothes.
A baker is someone that bakes bread: almost every country in the world must have such people.
It is worth noticing that quite a lot of English-language family names come from the jobs that people did in an earlier generation ('the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker' in one children's rhyme; 'tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor' in another). If you know of famous British people with names like this, it may help you remember them. (Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first woman Prime Minister towards the end of the 20th century; her husband's family name 'Thatcher' means 'someone who makes roofs for houses, using straw'. You may have seen ~ at least in pictures, or in film or on television ~ little country cottages, and other buildings, with roofs like this, which almost look more like hair!)
Other family names may come from where people live (like Street, Church, Lake, Rivers, Hill or Bridge), or some characteristic of the people (Armstrong, Whitehead, Smart), or from a name in an earlier generation (McDonald, O'Reilly, Prichard, Robertson). Maybe there are similar patterns in the names in your language, or in the phone-book at home. Once you know these things, you can make more connections in your mind, and your learning should be faster and richer.
2. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
If you can see a lot of doctors and nurses, you are probably inside ...
[ ] ... a church.
[x] ... a hospital.
[ ] ... a university.
[ ] ... a prison.
These are all good institutions, but Answer 2 is much the most likely.
3. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
My little sister has always loved animals. She is studying biology, and she hopes to go to ... ... to become ... ...
[ ] ... college ... / ... an animal doctor.
[x] ... college ... / ... a vet.
[ ] ... university ... / ... a vet.
[ ] ... university ... / ... a veterinary surgeon.
Answer 3 is also fine, though most people nowadays say 'college' rather than 'university' (or perhaps, the young people themselves shorten it to 'Uni'.)
'Veterinary surgeon' is the full version of what 'vet' stands for, but it's a great big 'mouthful' of words to say, and most people use the short form here ('I'm just taking the dog round to the vet').
4. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
A shopkeeper may work in a specialist shop (such as a hardware shop), or in a much bigger ...
[ ] ... buying house.
[x] ... department store.
[ ] ... multiple retail outlet.
[ ] ... large all-purpose shop.
This is the usual expression for such a shop in English.
5. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
Someone who does a lot of work using a tractor is probably a ...
[ ] ... pharmacist.
[x] ... farmer.
[ ] ... motor mechanic.
[ ] ... train driver.
A 'pharmacist' sounds as if he (or she) might be connected with farming, but that isn't true: he or she will be working in a chemist's shop, carefully preparing people's pills and medicines.
A motor mechanic may well spend time repairing tractors, but probably not so much 'using' the tractor for its main purpose, which would be working on the land and fields.
'Tractor' (in the original Latin) means 'something that pulls or drags', but we do not use that in English to mean the power-unit at the front of a train. We usually call that an 'engine' or 'locomotive'.
6. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
Someone who designs buildings is ... ... , but a person that designs and makes and mends machinery is ... ... .
[ ] ... a engineer ... / ... a architect.
[ ] ... an engineer ... / ... an architect.
[ ] ... a architect... / ... a engineer.
[x] ... an architect... / ... an engineer.
You need to have these the right way round; and remember that since they each start with a vowel, it's easier (and right!) to say 'AN ...' before the title of the job.
Remember also that English almost always says someone is 'a pilot' or 'an organist' (or whatever). Many other languages don't do the 'a'. Russian simply says 'Svetlana ballerina', without even having a verb; German says such things as 'Mein Bruder ist Lehrer', and in French 'Sa femme est actrice'. Not a hint of 'a' anywhere!
7. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
A journalist may be reporting for ...
[ ] ... a national newspaper.
[ ] ... television or the papers.
[ ] ... a local magazine.
[x] ... television, radio, the press or online.
Any of these might be true, but Answer 4 offers the widest selection.
8. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
Someone who spends most of their day in the kitchen is probably working as ...
[ ] ... waiter in cafe.
[ ] ... chef in restaurant.
[x] ... a chef in a restaurant
[ ] ... a waitress in a cafe.
We need the 'a' again here, and Answer 3 is the best. If someone is a waiter or waitress, they will spend some of their time in the kitchen (at the 'pass', where the food is ready to be taken into the dining room) ... and some of it actually taking the orders, serving the food and clearing the tables when people have finished. (This is what we call 'front-of-house' in public places like restaurants and theatres.) At any rate, the waiting staff would not spend 'most of their time in the kitchen', which is what the question said.
9. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
In lots of jobs, people do the same thing 'over and over again'. But that could mean very different things to ...
[ ] ... actor, bus driver, factory worker.
[ ] ... a actor, a bus driver, a factory worker.
[ ] ... a actor, a bus driver or a factory worker.
[x] ... an actor, a bus driver or a factory worker.
Only Answer 4 has all the right details in place ('an ... / a ... / or a ...').
10. Choose the word (or words) that make the best sense in the gap.
My wife works in a shop, and I work as a teacher in a primary school. When we come home in the evenings we are both tired from ...
[ ] ... handling money all day.
[x] ... standing up and smiling at people all day.
[ ] ... looking at books all day.
[ ] ... listening to children all day.
In both the jobs that were mentioned, people have to do these two things (among much else)!