Week 6 exercises

Spot the errors

In each of the following sentences, there is one or more mistakes. Spot these errors and correct the sentences:


1. Could you please send me an oversight of the conferenceprogramme? 

overview
2. Unfortunately, he refused talking to me. 

He refused to talk to me
3. Thanks for caring, but I'm fine. There is nothing on the hand. 

There is nothing going on
4. I'd like to congratulate you with your birthday. 

On your birthday
5.Thank you for showing interest in our company. We will get back at you as soon as possible.

Come back to
6. House prices have increased with 3.1% this year. 

With = By
7. I'll send you an answer on your question by Monday at the latest. 

on = to
8.According an actual publication, women drink more coffee than men. 

According to
9. My best friend is someone who appears to have only good qualities.
She is kind, generous, caring, self-absorbed. In short, she's just a wonderful person. 

shortly
10. I'm looking forward at the weekend very much. 

at = to

Hedging - answers

Exercise 1

Identify the hedging expressions in the following sentences.

1. There is no difficulty in explaining how a structure such as an eye or a feather contributes to survival and reproduction; the difficulty is in thinking of a series of steps by which it could have arisen.
2. For example, it is possible to see see that in January this person weighed 60.8 kg for eight days,
3. For example, it may be necessary for the spider to leave the branch on which it is standing, climb up the stem, and walk out along another branch.
4. Escherichia coli , when found in conjunction with urethritis, often indicate infection higher in the uro-genital tract.
5. There is experimental work to show that a week or ten days may not be long enough and a fortnight to three weeks is probably the best theoretical period.
6. Conceivably, different forms, changing at different rates and showing contrasting combinations of characteristics, were present in different areas.
7. One possibility is that generalized latent inhibition is likely to be weaker than that produced by pre-exposure to the CS itself and thus is more likely to be susceptible to the effect of the long interval.
8. For our present purpose, it is useful to distinguish two kinds of chemical reaction, according to whether the reaction releases energy or requires it.
9. It appears to establish three categories: the first contains wordings generally agreed to be acceptable, the second wordings which appear to have been at some time problematic but are now acceptable, and the third wordings which remain inadmissible.

Prepositions commonly used in academic writing

Use a dictionary and fill in the correct prespositions which match the following nouns:

an alternative for
an improvement over
a reaction to
a shift for/in
associate with
compatible  with

consistent with

derive from

devoted with

deviation from

exclude from

in comparison with
in contrast to

in line for

in spite of

 in terms with
in average
with behalf of
for the whole
with the exception of
to be aware of
to comment for
to distinguish from
to engage with