Advanced EFL / ESL
Comprehension grammar and vocabulary - Exercise and classroom activity index

Listed by type of exercise or activity

General comprehension exercises, based on the text

• All you need is Love -  22 written or oral comprehension questions on this article
• America's drive-in movie theaters.  True/False questions - justify your answers
• The Bird Man of the Isles - True/False questions
• Bodie - where the west was wildest - Say whether the following statements are true or false.
• Deserts of America -  True/False questions
• Mardi Gras in New Orleans  
• Mississippi Music :  Decide if statements are right (R) or wrong (W). Rewrite any wrong statements, correcting them as necessary.
• Short story - Lucky Jim - General comprehension questions
  
• Tea and the British : Text comparison : Find the ten factual mistakes in this summary of the article
• Tolkien & the Hobbit   Read through the article, then complete sentences using relevant information

Comprehension - listening

• Short story - Blue Gum Tree - Two listening comprehension exercises are suggested.
• Crime time basketball - Have students remember what was written in the article.

Comprehension : sequencing events 

• Jewel - the voice from Alaska -  Read the article then put list of events into chronological order.
• Route 66 - Highway 66 revisited : Read the article, then put these events in the right order.

Comprehension - careful reading for information

• Deserts of America. Parallel text : Underline all the cases where the information given is not the same as the information in the original article.
• Pubs and their signs Read the article and write down five things that you have learned about British pubs.
• Smugglers text correction: Correct the mistakes in this badly copied extract from the article.
• Tea and the British : Text comparison : Find the ten factual mistakes in this summary of the article

Reusing information : Creative or descriptive writing

• Awaiting the big one  - Imagine that you are a journalist in 1906 in San Francisco, a short time after the earthquake. Describe the scene that you see
• California's Water Wars: Produce projects for authentic documents (in English) for distribution to the public
• College sport USA. Write a letter reusing certain elements of vocabulary from the article.
• The Story of the blues -  Write sentences to link the following words in the order given
• Leonard cohen Interview : write an article about Cohen, using the interview as your source.
• London's Notting Hill Carnival -  Describe a day at the carnival, using the words given
  
• Route 66 - Highway 66 revisited :  Letter writing, based on information in the article
• Short story - Blue Gum Tree : Retell the story as a local newspaper article. Include certain terms.
• Short story - The Car : Rewrite the story as told by Shafi in his own words.
• Short Story - Lucky Jim - The local coast guard chief had to write a report explaining the events that took place. Complete the sentences.
• Tolkien & the Hobbit:  letter writing, based on information in the article. An exchange of letters between Tolkien and Edith.

Expression - writing / speaking activities

See also creative writing exercises above.

Rephrasing

• College sport USA. - Rephrase a complex sentence, using the framework given
• Thanksgiving - Rephrase the following sentences in your own words, starting with the prompt given:

Question forming:

• America's Amish - Imagine an interview with Johan, using the question words indicated
• Crime time basketball -  Rearrange the words to make questions that relate to the article
• Hillary Clinton - the early years . Form questions from the answers given.
• Orson Welles : Fictitious interview with Orson Welles: what were your questions ?
• Short story - Blue Gum Tree : Police interview. Here are the answers, what were the questions ?
• Short Story - Lucky Jim  : Here are the answers, what were the questions ?
  
• Short story - The Car : Police interview. Here are the answers, what were the questions ?
  
• Thanksgiving. Form questions starting with specific question words, to which the article provides the answer

Sentence building

• The Mormons - Make up one correctly structured sentence from each of the groups of words below.

• Rodeo - two exercises to explore the question of style

Text contraction:

• America's Bald Eagles - reduce each paragraph of this article to no more than 20 words,
• The Bird Man of the Isles  - Write a 400-word article based on this interview.
  
• College sport USA  - Reduce this article to about half its length.
• Hillary Clinton - the early years  Contract the article to about half its length.
• America's teenage courts - Reduce the article to four sentences of about 30 words each

Role play activities:

• Amerca's Teen courts - Conduct sessions of the teen court in class, using the method indicated
• The Bird Man of the Isles : Pair work : recreate the interview, using the original questions.
• Ellis Island -  Structured role play, with roles and theme
• GM crops - Frankenstein foods ?  Role-play exercise - 5 roles
• Save the Everglades -  Structured role play exercise , with roles and theme
• A Town called Sturgis -  Imagine a radio sketch based on the article

Grammar points:

Article use

• Pubs and their signs Complete an extract from the text, adding articles where necessary.
• Skyscrapers . Put in the definite articles in an extract from the text, but only when they are needed.

• Skiing in the wind :  explain the meaning of the many compound nouns used in the article

• The story of Ellis Island  Complete these sentences with the appropriate prepositions   
• America's Amish - Replace all the missing prepositions in this extract from the article.
• Save the Everglades - Replace all the missing prepositions in this extract from the article.

Prepositional and phrasal verbs

• Rodeo : Have students pick out and explain the phrasal/prepositional verbs used.
• Woody Guthrie - Match the prepositional verbs listed with their meanings.

Relative pronouns

• All you need is love - Replace the missing relatives (that, which, who, whom, what, how) in this extract
• The Mormons - Replace the missing relative pronoun in these sentences: (which, or whose?)

Time clauses:

• The story of Ellis Island -  match phrases and add a time clause.

Verbs :  participles, tenses, voice

• Martin Luther King - Blank-fill :  replace the verbs and participles indicated, using the correct form.
• America's teenage courts -  Blank-fill : put the verbs  into the correct form
• Save the Everglades - this text well illustrates use of the present perfect tense.
• Skiing in the wind : transform active sentences into the passive voice
• The Story of the jet plane -  Replace all the missing -ing and -ed endings in this extract.
  

Verbs : modals and auxiliaries

• John Lennon  Blank-fill  - Replace missing modal verbs or auxiliaries in these extracts from the article

Words and vocabulary

Vocabulary : general

• America's Bald Eagles: What expressions, used in the original article, mean...?
• California's Water Wars - Memory and logic - complete an extract from the text, using the qualifiers (adjectives, etc.) listed.
• Charles Babbage Explain, in English, the following words and expressions
• GM crops - Frankenstein foods ?  Explain and rephrase selected words / expressions.
• GM crops - Frankenstein foods   Blank-fill (cloze) exercise . Complete an extract from the text. some cases require the original expression, others require  alternatives.
• Life in Umbridge - living in the country - Words and structures Complete sentences using appropriate words in the right structure.
• Meet Robodog.  Technical language : Explain the meaning of the following expressions:
• Mighty Mississippi -  Blank-fill exercise : Try to complete this extract from the text using  words in the list provided
• Rosa Parks - Find the opposites of the following words, in the article.
• Shakespeare 400 years on - General text study exercises.
• Short story - the Car Select the closest equivalent of the words and expressions used in the story:
• Smugglers :  Explain the italicized expressions in the article; then make up sentences reusing them
• The Yukon quest - Find the expressions, used in the text, that could be rephrased using the following words.
  

Vocabulary - multiple choice exercises

• Who killed Martin Luther King
• Rosa Parks - Select the best alternative for the following words or phrases that occur in the article,
• Short story : Lucky Jim  - Select the nearest equivalents
• Who is Angelyne ?  Select the nearest equivalent to the following words as used in the article.
• Route 66 - Highway 66 revisited :  Select the nearest equivalent for the following words and phrases

Vocabulary : words and meaning

• The story of the blues :  Explain the use of the following expressions.
• Stephen Hawking : Explain the following expressions in your own words:

Vocabulary : Synonyms

• Britain's Chinese come out on top - Rephrasing - complete an extract from the article using alternative words and expressions
  
• The Yukon quest - Find the expressions, used in the text, that could be rephrased using the following words.

Word endings

• America's bald eagles: Add the necessary word endings, and words, to complete this extract
• California - Awaiting the big one Replace the missing word-endings in two extracts from the article.
• Stephen Hawking - Interactive online exercise (click) - Without referring back to the article, try to put in all the correct endings
• Wall street culture   
• Woody Guthrie - Replace the missing word endings in this short extract from the article

Word search

• America's teenage courts - Find words or expresions in the text which mean...
• Americans fat and thin. Here are some synonyms : find the original words

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