1.
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Only in ONE of these sentences does the verb 'go' suggest a thing physically moving from one place to another. Which is it? |
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I'm afraid you'll have to have your tea 'black' this morning; the milk's gone off. |
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The siren went off and everybody ran to the shelter. |
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The other three went off to discuss privately what they could do about it. |
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She's rather gone off the idea of a church wedding. |
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2.
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The phrase 'make up' has many meanings. Which of these four sentences is the only one that keeps any original sense of 'making', meaning something is put-together or created? |
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I daresay she'll have made up some story to explain her absence yesterday. |
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He was very rude to me last week, but yesterday he came in quietly and made up to me. |
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We lost a fair bit of money on the project, so our members are going to have to make that up somehow. |
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We're going to have a party to make up for the miserable news we've all had recently. |
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3.
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Another verb that is often used phrasally is 'carry'. Which ONE of these sentences still suggests, reasonably strongly, the idea of something being physically transported to another place? |
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'Carry on the good work, unless or until you hear otherwise from me.' |
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A fire drill should be carried out regularly in all working premises. |
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Back in those days he was carrying on with a colleague in the accounts department. |
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Any unclaimed pay for this month will be carried over to the next. |
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4.
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'She .... .... the address on a scrap of paper, so as to have it to hand later and ... ... to the company for further details.' |
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... wrote off ... / ... write down ... |
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... wrote down ... / ... write off ... |
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... wrote up ... / ... write back ... |
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... wrote in ... / ... write away ... |
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5.
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Which of these sentences does NOT make plausible sense? |
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A grown-up is an adult who has reached their full height, and grown out of childhood clothes (both physically, and in terms of having matured in their tastes ~ e.g. no more 'schoolgirly pink'). |
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'To begin with I didn't enjoy that kind of music at all, but it's been growing on me.' |
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'It always feels odd to talk about a sound "growing fainter and fainter", but I suppose that still makes sense!' |
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'The storm appears to have grown over during the night.' |
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6.
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'Get' is probably the most versatile, all-purpose English verb of all (even though many traditional English teachers prefer never to see it in written work, where there's nearly always a clearer alternative).
Only ONE of these sentences is NOT a reasonable example of 'get' in action; which one? |
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It's obviously not very likely that you would get on with someone after a party, if you never got off with them in the first place. |
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Three minutes after getting offstage, he had got his costume off and was signing programmes for members of the audience. |
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By the time I had got off the phone and got back on with my work again, the children had got off the grass where they had been playing. |
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He would have got away early on Friday; but with so much work on, he didn't think he'd ever get away with it. |
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7.
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Another versatile monosyllabic verb is 'cut': which ONE of these sentences contains a non-idiomatic misuse of this word? |
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She's seemed very cut-up since he took that job so far away, and they've had to cut back on their dating. |
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'She was just about to explain which bit of the fabric to cut off, when there was a power cut, which meant that our online conversation was cut off.' |
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We used to be able to cut down this alleyway ~ but we can't do that now, unless they cut through these trees. |
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I'm really no artist; I'm not cut out for drawing fancy cutaway diagrams of complex mechanical systems. |
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8.
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From 'cutting' to 'breaking' (two everyday operations in which people rearrange their world!) ...
Which ONE of these sentences contains at least one false/nonsensical usage of the verb 'break'? |
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Their relationship had been nearing a breakdown for some while, but the moment when he ~ quite accidentally ~ broke the handle off her teapot, was the moment that she broke off their engagement. |
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A loud and resonant cheer broke out on both sides as the workmen broke through the tunnel from each end. |
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The value of these investments has broken back sharply, and looks likely to break under completely within a matter of weeks. |
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As soon as the school breaks up, the old laboratory equipment will all be dismantled and broken up ~ except, of course, the items that were already stolen in the recent break-in. |
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9.
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Which of these sentences contains at least one NON-idiomatic use of the verb 'pull'? |
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I'd only just pulled out of the hotel car park when a police car pulled me over, so I pulled up against the verge and the officer asked me what I'd been drinking.
'You're pulling my leg,' I said; 'I never drink and drive!' |
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I shall go to the meeting and really try to pull for him. |
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We are all going to have to pull together if this group is going to pull through these difficult times; we can't have any more people pulling out, so let's all pull our socks up, shall we? |
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... So I said to him as he was pulling off his sweatband, 'You never believed we were going to pull this off between us, did you?'. |
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10.
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... And we'll finish with 'falling'. Once more, which of these sentences contains at least one false usage of this verb? |
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'Of course, any living breathing male would have fallen for her; men were almost falling over each other for a dance with her.' |
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It was very good of you to fall by unexpectedly; I'm only sorry you fell under at a time when we couldn't easily entertain you. |
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... So his business fell through, as I knew it would; how so many people fell for his advertisements, I can't imagine, but in the end he fell out with his partner, their customer base fell away and they had to wind up the company. |
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If we fall behind with production, we can always fall back on casual labour; but we can't afford to have sales falling off at this time of year. |
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