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jeudi 12 avril 2012

MUST/HAVE TO/ MUST NOT/ DON'T NEED TO

Must express obligation and a strong necessity, it is followed by a verb without "to".
Have to is an equivalent of Must but not as strong.
Examples :

  • Muslims must pray (perform salah) five times a day.

  • Students have to do their homework.

ACTIVE/PASSIVE VOICE

Look at the example below :

  • Somebody built that school in 1896.

  • That school was built in 1896.

This is a passive construction. It is used when a fact is more important than who performed its actions.
Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet". He also wrote many other plays. (Active voice = The focus is on Shakespeare)
"Hamlet" was written by Shakespeare. It is one if his most successful plays. (Passive voice = The focus is on "Hamlet", not on Shakespeare)

jeudi 5 avril 2012

Education in Madagascar

Part One : Reading And
Interpreting

A/ Comprehension: Read the text carefully and do the activities.

Education is a major issue in Madagascar, where two thirds of the population live in severe poverty. Many children, particularly, in rural and remote areas are out of school. To improve this situation especially for those living in the most remote and vulnerable zones, the Ministry of Education has been working, since 2005, to develop distance education via radio programmes.
The main audience for the programmes are children aged between five and nine years. The 15 Minutes

mercredi 4 avril 2012

Planets in our solar system

PART1: READING (15points)
Eight of the nine planets in our solar system fall into two groups called the inner planets and the outer planets. The four planets closest to the Sun are called the inner planets. They are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The inner planets are also called the rocky planets, because they are made mainly of rock and iron. There are four outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The outer planets are also called the gas giants because they are huge and made mainly of gas. Pluto, the farthest planet from the Sun is a small ball of ice. Some astronomers wonder whether

Astronomy

                   Five years ago, astronomers viewed Mars as an essentially dead world. Recent discoveries made by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft and gleaned from Martian meteorites have changed that opinion.
                  The new picture of a `youthful Mars' not only confirms that geological activity occurred abundantly in the first two thirds of Mars's history, but also that it has continued until comparatively recently, and probably persists up to the present day. This finding will have a dramatic effect on the human exploration of Mars, and the quest to learn whether life ever existed there.

lundi 2 avril 2012

IF CONDITIONALS

We use If + Present Simple + Present Simple to talk about things that are always true. We call this Zero conditional.

- If you don't eat, you get sick.

- If you visit New York, look out for the Statue of Liberty.

- If you smoke again, you die.

- If you heat ice, it melts.

We use If + Present simple + Will to talk about real possibilities.
We can use other conditional tools instead of "if" like unless (if not), as soon as and when.
- If he comes today, I will tell him.
- Unless it rains, I will visit you.
- I will do it as soon as I get home.

CAUSE

American newspapers try to entrain as well as give information, for they have to complete with TV.

for, here, introduces a cause. It's slightly more formal than because.

we introduce a cause using : because, for, since or as.

Examples :

- Newspapers are necessary in everyday life because they keep people informed.

- Advertisers use children in their commercials as childhood is seen as a world of innocence and honesty.

- Many people don't like commercials, for advertising campaigns add to the price of the products.

- Advertising creates frustration since it makes people want to buy what they cannot afford.