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Vocabulary

In the news: Johnny Depp's Dogs!

Average: 3.4 (39 votes)

Hollywood actor Johnny Depp has been given an _1_ by Australia: Either send your pet dogs back home to the United States or they will be put _2_.

“There is a process if you want to bring animals: you get the permits, they go into _3_ and then you can have them,” said Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce.

Simple Past Tense Exercise

Average: 2.7 (433 votes)

Use the simple past tense to talk about actions that have already finished. It doesn't matter when in the past they happened or how long they happened for.

Take a look and compare the present tense verbs with simple past tense verbs in these two sentences.

Present:
I take my young brother to the park and buy him an ice-cream. We kick around a football, laugh and talk for hours.

Advanced Level - UK Elections

Average: 3.2 (27 votes)

What are the seven missing words in this short text about UK politics?

The people of Britain will step into _1_ booths on May 7 to choose their next government.

Opinion polls currently suggest no party will win an _2_ victory and another hung Parliament is likely. In this event current Prime Minister, David Cameron, would offer the Libral Democrat Party a repeat of the last five years in forming a _3_ government.

5 Heat Idioms

Average: 3 (130 votes)

It's heating up (the weather is getting warmer) here in Malta.

Do you know that heat up is also used to describe a situation that is becoming intense, or angry: "The conversation started to heat up so I decided to leave."

Here are five other heat related expressions.

Take the heat

If you can take the heat you can take criticism and handle stressful situations.

"Don't worry, if the project fails and the boss gets angry, I'll take the heat for us."

Find the 10 common mistakes

Average: 3.7 (229 votes)

Take a look at these ten sentences, there is one mistake in each one. Can you find all of them? Write your correct sentences in the comments area.

4 Face Idioms

Average: 2.9 (133 votes)

Straight Face

When your face shows no emotion, especially when you are trying not to laugh, you keep a straight face.

Don't laugh, try and keep a straight face or she will know you are joking.

His new hairstyle is so funny I found it hard to keep a straight face.

Lose Face

When you lose face you feel you have lost the respect of others because of something you have done. When feel embarrassed when you lose face.

What does Pre mean?

Average: 3.3 (43 votes)

A prefix is placed before a base word to modify its meaning.

Examples of prefixes include:

return, reply, return

unkind, untrue, uncertain

misunderstand, misprint, mistrust

Pre prefix words

Pre is a prefix which means before, prior to, early and in front of.

10 Useful Synonyms

Average: 3.5 (43 votes)

Synonyms are words that are similar or have a related meaning to another word. For example, small and little have the same meanings. Beautiful and gorgeous are also synonyms.

Can you match the words on the left to their synonyms on the right?

Silent Letters in English

Average: 3.3 (34 votes)

In English some words have silent letters. This means that how a word is pronounced and how it is spelt is different. We write the silent letter when we spell the word, but it is not heard when we speak.

Here are some examples. The orange letter in each word is silent.

Silent B

The lift is broken, we'll have to climb the stairs.

A baby sheep is called a lamb.

Silent C

All about animals

Average: 2 (256 votes)

After our lesson on cat idioms and another on dog idioms, it’s time to take a look at some other animals.

Instead of idioms we are going to look at some vocabulary related to animals. All you have to do is read through the following short text and guess what the missing words are:

Animal Vocabulary - A day at the zoo

I took my young daughter to the zoo for the first time recently.