Find sixteen clothes words in the word square using the clues below

Game

See if you can complete this crossword with the help of the clues that follow. The clues and the answers include most of the items of clothing you are likely to wear or see worn. The answers are on page 109.

71 hood 73 peg

Practice

[1] Write or discuss the answers to the questions below.

1What (exactly) did you wear to the last three parties you have been to?

2What (again exactly) would you wear on each of the occasions listed below? a an open-air rock concert

b a formal garden party

с a new discotheque’s first night

da summer afternoon on the river

ea quiet evening at home

fa barbecue on the beach

3In which periods of history do you think men and/or women dressed especially attractively? Describe what you like about these clothes.

4What clothes have you seen in the street or in shops recently that really appealed to you?

5What clothes have you bought over the past year? How often have you worn them? Do you still like them? What condition are they in now?

[2]Write, in dialogue form, a conversation between a teenager (claiming the freedom to wear modern styles and colours) and his/her grandmother (complaining about a loss ofelegance).

[3]Write out the shopping list of all the clothes you need for your new baby.

[4]Write a (full) list of clothes to take with you on a four-week holiday touring the UnitedStates.

Add here any other words or expressions that you meet to do with clothes.

Size, quantity, dimensions and measurements

Reading 1

There are a lot of quite common expressions in this text. Make a special effort to remember them and to use them regularly in your English.

As you read:

1 Write out the list offood and drink the writer’s father-in-law made before the wedding celebrations. Don’t panic! He was very rich!

2 Note down the phrases which are clearly exaggerated.

There was, quite simply, masses of the stuff— enough to feed an army, or sufficient to keep a largish family going for a year at least — and it wasn’t only the staggering quantity. There was an enormously wide range of dishes, ranging from huge stuffed olives to king-sized prawns, from giant-sized crabs to quite massive crepes.

The guests — and there were millions of them all over the place — had a choice of a thousand and one different cheeses, no fewer than fifty different salads, dozens of pates and scores of little savouries.

The meat — literally tons of it — had been cut into exceedingly large slices, an inch thick, and broad enough to overhang any normal-sized dinner plate. There was also plenty offish, including a monumental pile of smoked salmon and an immense dishful of sea-food, plus an abundance of poultry and game.

There was an excessive amount of alcohol: two containers ofgiant proportions brimful of punch, (their combined volumes must have exceeded a hundred cubic feet), countless magnums ofchampagne and innumerable three-litre bottles of sparkling wine. There were gallons of the stuff.

The fruit salad was served in a colossal dish, several feet in diameter. Into it had gone enormous cherries almost the size of oranges and gigantic oranges as big as footballs, bananas nearly a foot in length and mammoth melons like footballs. A substantial quantity of liqueur brandy had also found its way in.

The cake was a mountain, consisting of a large number of sections, each providing ample portions for a couple of rugby teams. Altogether it was over three metres in height and getting on for a metre in width. The layers of cream on each block were some three centimetres thick.

Despite numerous predictions that far too much food had been prepared, very little was left at the end. True, a fair amount of cheese remained — a reasonable proportion of which was fortunately still usable — but apart from that, hardly anything: a few crumbs of cake, one tiny piece offish, a minute portion of ham, a negligible amount ofjelly, a teeny-weeny drop of punch, but not a trace of the fruit salad in the bottom ofthe bowl.

There was a great deal of lengthy speculation as to the astronomical sum total ofthe cost; it was never disclosed. A spokesman for my new father-in-law said, ‘It wasn’t small’, and my mother-in-law still reminds me occasionally that it was

‘quite a few pounds’ worth’.

Size,quantity,dimensions andmeasurements

Game

The size, strength or capacity of things can be measured in many different ways. Cover the column on the right and complete the following sentences with an appropriate word or phrase of measurement or size.

Size, quantity, dimensions and measurements

Reading 2

Many quantities are set for us by the way various products are prepared or packaged for sale. Read through the shopping list, then test yourself on the words by covering first the right-hand column then the left-hand one.

Who said you don’t get much for your money nowadays? For less than £300 you could buy a whole case ofbest-quality champagne. Or you could buy all ofthe following and still have some change.

Practice

The words sort, kind and type could be used to complete many of the questions below. Naturally enough, though, we have a number of other words which might be used. Use one of the eight words listed below to complete the sentences.

1 What… of astro-physics is Aunt Sally studying?

2Which … of reptile would you least like to have in your bedroom?

3Which Fiat… is supposed to be the most economical to run?

4What… of music was popular before The Beatles?

5Which … of soap-powder do you usually use?

6What age-… are most of the unemployed in?

7What… of people did the English descend from?

8What… of animals does the cheetah belong to?

Size/ quantity, dimensions and measurements

Here are eight more words and eight more sentences for you to complete.

1What… of speech is the word ‘down’?

2What… of dog is least trouble to look after?

3Which … of petrol do you use, two star or four star?

4What salary-… do most teachers fall into?

5Which … of your branch are you working in at the moment?

6What… of car would you say is the most reliable?

7What… of corporal punishment do you personally hate most?

8What… of book would you list War and Peace under: fact or fiction?

Think of a big city that you know or have seen photographs of in books. Describe the impression it made on you when you first arrived there.

Discuss why English is in some ways so easy and in others so difficult.

Imagine you had a dream last night which involved a horrible creature of gigantic proportions. Describe the monster.

Imagine you are taking part in a meeting to discuss the siting of a new airport near your home. Consider the possible effects of the noise and the traffic on the local population and the countryside. Write a statement which clearly expresses your feelings and views.

You have just visited a Third World country with appalling problems. Write a one-minute speech for a radio news programme on the country’s limited resources and enormous needs.

Write down, after discussion with a partner if possible, a list of all the things (including food) that you will need to put in the nuclear fallout shelter you have just built.

Write the first minute of your Olympic Games Opening Ceremony commentary in which you describe the scene in front of you.

Add here any other words or expressions you may meet.