Practice with the Past Simple and the Past Continuous

1. Is the past simple used correctly?

a. We use this tense to talk about actions and situations in the past.

Comte named the social science “sociology”.

b. The past simple denotes an action performed within a period of time which is already over. The time of action may be indicated by adverbials of past time (yesterday, a week ago, last year, ... etc.).

He decided to invest his capital in the new enterprise two years ago.

The scientific approach to sociology came about in the mid-1880s.

c. The past simple denotes a succession of past actions.

The buyers saw the display of the machines and sent an inquiry to the firm.

d. When “who”, “what”, or “which” is the subject of a past simple question, we do not use “did”.

Who created the theory of class conflict?

2. Is the past continuous used correctly?

a. The past continuous is often used to denote an action or event in progress which happened at a stated past time (usually after such phrases as “the whole day“, “all day long”).

They were discussing a very important project the whole day.

b. We often use the past continuous together with a simple past tense when a shorter action or an event (expressed by the simple past) happened either in the middle or interrupted the action in progress (expressed by the past continuous).

As I was studying the new approach carefully, I discovered a lot of new things.

c. The past continuous is used to denote an action thought of as a continual process. In this case the adverbs “always”, “ever”, “constantly” are used. The past continuous is to be found in emotional speech.

The prices were constantly rising! One couldn’t keep up with them!

Exercise 1

Choose the correct form.

1. Karl Marx believed / were believing that a capitalist society is characterised by a class conflict between the bourgeoisie (the owners of capital) and the proletariat (the working-class).

2. He was always losing / always lost his money when he provided capital for new businesses.

3. Formally Auguste Comte used / was using the term “social physics” which denoted / was denoting the study of society.

4. Comte gave / was giving a powerful stimulus to the development of sociology, the stimulus which bore fruit in the later decades of the nineteenth century.

5. When John studied / was studying at college he had to make very important decisions.

6. Émile Durkheim developed / was developing positivism as a foundation to practical social research.

7. We discussed / were discussing the new approaches to the project at the meeting the whole day.

8. He spoke / was always speaking too fast. I could hardly understand half of what he said then.

9. When she read / was reading a new book in applied sociology, she found / was finding it necessary to clarify a number of terms.

10. While Marx and Engels associated / were associating the emergence of modern society with the development of capitalism, Durkheim connected / was connecting it with industrialization and the new social division of labor.

11. Mother stared / was staring out of the window; she seemed deep in thought.

Exercise 2

Choose the underlined word combination that is incorrect.

1. During both the 18th and 19th centuries advances in science and technology

(А) (B)

were encouraged people to believe that there could be a rational explanation for

(C)

everything.

(D)

2. First, the post-Newtonian physical sciences promised a comprehensive

(A) (B) (C)

explanations of the Earth and its place in the universe.

(D)

3. After than the post-Darwinian natural sciences presented explanations of life on

(A) (B) (C)

Earth with the theory of evolution and the origin of the species.

(D)

4. Finally, it was expected that the social sciences would extend it this

(A) (B)

´enlightenment project´ into explanations of the collective activities and

(C)

relationships of human beings.

(D)

5. In fact, Auguste Comte, who gave the name to sociology, confidently were

(A) (B)

expecting that it would provide the highest level of scientific explanation in

(C)

establishing laws of human society itself.

(D)

6. The ´classical sociologists´ of nineteenth century were European and mainly

(A)

from France and Germany but the great expansion of the discipline took place in

(B)

the USA during the mid-twentieth century.

(C) (D)

7. Now, as well as being an academic subject, sociology forms part of much other

(A) (B)

programmes such as business studies, medical training, geography and

(C)

environmental science and the newer sports and health sciences.

(D)

8. During the 1960s, sociology became a major social science subject, taught in

(A) (B) (C)

universities and colleges in mostly countries of the world.

(D)

Exercise 3

Render the following into English:

1. В то время как студенты занимались изучением различных групп людей, приглашенный социолог помогал им определять взаимоотношения между индивидуумом и обществом.

2. Когда мы обсуждали вопрос взаимодействия между социальной структурой общества и его членами на занятии по социологии, преподаватель приводил очень интересные примеры из своей практики.

3. Чтобы предпринять какое-либо исследование, социологи разрабатывали теории, которые предполагали общее объяснение того или иного вида поведения людей.

4. Ученые впервые применили научный подход к изучению общества лишь в начале 19 века.

5. Когда я проводил исследование социальной группы, я вечно сталкивался с большим количеством различных проблем (to face challenges).

6. Резюмируя сказанное (короче говоря), развитие научных знаний в данной области произошло благодаря значительным социальным потрясениям в начале прошлого столетия.

7. Когда студенты высказывались, что в повседневной жизни люди обычно полагаются на здравый смысл, чтобы найти выход из сложных ситуаций, они постоянно отмечали, что этот источник знаний не всегда надежен.

8. Он вечно опаздывал на занятия и пропускал много важных вопросов, касающихся развития научных знаний об обществе.

9. Мы как раз рассматривали применение социологии ко всем сферам человеческой деятельности, когда один из студентов задал вопрос о взаимодействии между социальной структурой общества и его членами.

Exercise 4

Read the text below. In most of the lines there is one wrong word or word combination. Other lines, however, are correct. If a line is correct, put a tick (√) in the space in the right-hand column. If there is a mistake in the line, use the correct word in the right-hand column.

1	In the past the traditional occupation for sociology graduates was		√
2	social work or some others form of public sector work. However today		other
3	sociology graduates go into a much wide range of jobs: in industry,
4	for instance, human resource management. Some of the large
5	retail firms recognise that their chief concern are people and
6	have taken sociology graduates from their management training
7	schemes. Many sociology graduates are going into teaching. This
8	include school teaching, further education and the option to remain in
9	high education. Students who achieve the best results during their
10	research undergraduate course may get the chance to go on to
11	postgraduate for higher degree with the aim of making a career
12	either as a lecturer combining teaching with research or as a specialist
13	researcher. As an alternative the increased demand for postgraduate
14	qualifications has been met by an increase in the number of masters
15	programmes for the MSc in Social Research. There are so many
16	opportunities ahead to find the best job in the field you have chosen!
3		POLITICAL POWER AND STATE ECONOMIC, LEGAL AND POLITICAL POWER RELATIONSHIPS

AGENDA

3.1	Lead-in	Section Overview
3.2	Language input	Developing vocabulary
3.3	Background information	Political Power and Governance Systems
3.4	Comprehension	Understanding the reading Scanning
3.5	Practice Skills focus	Fill-in exercises Writing skills Presenting the information
3.6	Dialogue	Political System and Social Order
	Supporting materials	Government Creates Social Order?
	Reading for Cross-cultural Associations	The British Class System
3.7	Role play	Political System, State and Government
3.8	Grammar Back Up	Practice with Verbs (II) Practice with Adjectives