Drill 5

1 The doorbell rang. He left the house. The doorbell rang just as he was leaving the house.

2 He had an accident. He drove too fast. He had an accident because he was driving too fast.

3 He went out. I came in. He went out just as I was coming in.

4 He got wet. It rained. He got wet because it was raining.

5 It started to rain. I set off. It started to rain just as I was setting off.

6 He didn’t see the bus. He looked at the map. He didn’t see the bus because he was looking at the map.

7 John called. I went to bed. John called just as I was going to bed.

8 I didn’t hear you. I listened to the radio. I didn’t hear you because I was listening to the radio.

Exercise 1

Use Past Continuous where appropriate; if it is not suitable, use Past Simple

The students were talking excitedly when the teacher came in, but they stopped at once when the teacher speak. He walked across the room and began to write questions on the blackboard. While he was writing, the students were sitting down, taking out their pens and preparing themselves for the test. The teacher finished writing, sat down in front of the class and opened a book. He was reading his book the whole time while the students were answering the questions. When the bell rang at four o’clock, most of them were still writing. The teacher told them to stop working and he collected their answer papers. As they were leaving the room he began to correct the papers.

Exercise 2

1 There are a lot of people in the street. There aren’t many people in the street.

2 I took a large number of photos while I was on holiday. I didn’t take many photos while I was on holiday.

3 The people were spending a lot of money. The people were not spending much money.

4 He gave me lots of help. He didn’t give me much help.

5 They’ve got plenty of whisky. They haven’t got mush whisky.

6 He can drink a great deal of wine. He can’t drink much wine.

7 There was a large quantity of blood on the face. There wasn’t much blood on his face.

8 He saw a great many animals. He didn’t see many animals.

Exercise 3

1. He came to London on the 13th of June and left again in September.

2 They went out qt half past one; they’ll be back in ten minutes.

3 He plays cricket in summer and football in winter.

4 He always leaves early in the morning and comes back late at night.

5 He rests at the weekends but works hard from Monday to Friday.

6 He was born in the nineteenth century.

7 I’m working until six o’clock on Friday evening.

8 He’s busy at present. He’ll see you in 30 minutes' time.

Exercise 4

1 That man is very fat. How fat that man is! What a fat man!

2 Those houses are very old. How old those houses are! What old houses!

3 That boy is really clever. How clever that boy is! What a clever boy!

4 This tea is very strong. How strong this tea is! what strong tea!

5 Those people are really funny. How funny those people are! What funny people!

Exercise 5

I had a great deal of work to do and I didn’t have much time to waste, so when my son began to ask a number of questions, I became rather angry. I told him he had lots of toys to play with and plenty of friends to go and see. As soon as he had gone, I took a quantity of magazines from my desk and tried to find an important article in one of them. I haven’t got much patience and I soon stopped searching. There was a lot of noise coming from the street outside my window, and when I looked out, I saw a large number of people gathered around a car. There had been an accident and there wasn’t large quantity much doubt that it was serious.

Exercise 6

1 She often complains about the weather.

2 I’m having difficulty in hearing what you say.

3 By the way, have you heard that John is getting married to Mary?

4 The car came round the corner at full speed.

5 As a matter of fact I didn’t do business with them after all.

6 You’ll soon get over your illness, but you must get to bed at... once.

7 We’re short of... time and we’ve nearly run out of money.

8 I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock and we’ll go to the cinema.

9 Hold on a minute while I write down your address on this piece of paper.

10 The car hit a tree and turned over. There was no other car ... in sight.

11 There’s a man at the door inquiring about you.

12 After the accident he didn’t come round for twenty minutes.