Exercise 2

1          I’m thinking about taking a gap year before I go to university and going travelling around South America.

2.         Why's Terry having a party?

            I think it's his birthday. 

3.         How did the cat get up into the tree?

            I expect he was chasing a bird. 

4.         Let me know when the post arrives.

            Why, are you expecting something important?

 5         Did you enjoy your time at boarding school?

No, I hated every minute of it.

 6.        As the boat was thrown about by the huge waves, she looked across at Paul and wondered if he was hating this, too.

7          This month's special exhibition of South African art is attracting over 5000 visitors a day to the museum, whereas we normally only get about 2000.

 8         As the home of William Shakespeare, Stratford attacted tourists from all over the world.

9          Do you see that big house over there? It's my uncle's.

10         I split up with Alex when I found out that he was seeing someone else.

11         What happened to your wrist?

I was measuring the window for some new curtains when I fell off the ladder and sprained it.

12         I was given this pedometer for my birthday. You just hook it on your belt and it
measures how far you walk during the day.

13         What on earth are you doing down there?

I am looking for one of my earrings - it fell off and rolled under the bed.

14         Which course are you going to apply to?

Well, this one on anthropology sees interesting.

15         Our neighbour's cat appears/ is appearing at our door every morning, demanding to be fed.

16         Chris is incredibly busy. At the moment he is appearing in Hamlet at the Crescent Theatre.

Exercise 1

Emergency services were bombarded with phone calls from all over the north of England last night by people who reported seeing blue objects shoot across the sky. Mrs Linda Hayward was driving along the B456 road at the time.

'I usually come/ am usually coming along that bit of road at about ten. As I
went/ am going past the old barn, I saw a single bright blue light going across the road in front of my car. I stopped the car and watched/ was watching it for about fifteen minutes. It travelled/ was travelling quite slowly from east to west and then it suddenly disappeared. Until now I never believed/ have never believed in UFOs, although my son is forever trying to persuade me that they exist. But now I think that maybe he is/ was right.'

At the height of the panic, police stations got/ were getting around a thousand calls an hour from members of the public. Sergeant Ron Drake of the Ambledale police was particularly busy. 'Between 10 and 11 o'clock we received around thirty calls. The callers said they saw/ were seeing a single blue light about as big as a car over the village. We are now considering searching the fields around Ambledale for any evidence left behind.'

Dr Bart Mastow, a lecturer in astronomy at Trumpton University offers/ offered a simple explanation. 'The reports that came/ were coming in last night suggest/ suggested that it was a meteor shower. This is not unusual on a small scale, but last night's shower seems to have been very large. In fact, we are getting an increasing number of meteor showers, and my department is currently researching possible reasons for this.'

But many witnesses to the events believe that they observed/ were observing more than a meteor shower, and the Ministry of Defence says that they take/ are taking the reports of UFO sightings very seriously