This is our fourth Big Quiz, with another 10 questions to test your English skills. The questions are linked to lessons on our site. Those links are in the answer explanations at the bottom of the page, so go there if there are questions you find difficult.
Make sure you also check out our previous quizzes:
Big Quiz 1
Big Quiz 2
Big Quiz 3
Make sure you also check out our previous quizzes:
Big Quiz 1
Big Quiz 2
Big Quiz 3
Select the Correct Answer
Answer Explanations
1
1 | c) is the correct answer as ‘consequently’ is used to give a result, not an example. Synonyms for ‘consequently’ include ‘as a result, thus, therefore, so’.
For more, see our speaking lesson on Giving Examples.
2
2 | a) Note that ‘couldn’t pay’ means that the sentence is in the past (‘couldn’t’ is the past of ‘can’t’). There are two events in this sentence:
1 – paying for the meal
2 – leaving wallets at home
1 – paying for the meal
2 – leaving wallets at home
1 is in the past (see the use of ‘couldn’t’). 2 must happen before 1. For an event that happens (2) before another event in the past (1), we should use the past perfect tense for 2. The answer is ‘had left’.
To learn more, go to http://www.studyandexam.com/past-perfect-tense.html.
Also visit our lesson on Speaking about Experiences.
3
3 | c) is the wrong collocation (remember collocations are words that like to go together) because we use ‘My lifelong ambition…’ not ‘My livelong ambition…’. Remember ‘life’ is a noun and ‘live’ is a verb.
See our Speaking lesson on Life Collocations.
See our Speaking lesson on Life Collocations.
4
4 | b) The correct superlative is ‘the most expensive’. ‘Expensive’ is a three syllable adjective (ex-pen-sive) so when we turn it into a superlative we use ‘the most’ rather than –est.
To study more on this topic, visit our Comparatives and Superlatives Quiz.
To study more on this topic, visit our Comparatives and Superlatives Quiz.
5
5 | c) Two collocations (common short phrases) we often use is ‘put pressure’ which means ‘influence’ and ‘positive/negative impact on’ which means ‘positive/negative change on’.
6
6 | c) ‘rely on’ is wrong. We can use ‘Politicians relying on the ignorance of voters are unlikely…’ as this is an active participle clause, and ‘Politicians who rely on the ignorance of voters are unlikely…’ as this is a relative clause. Note that both clauses add extra information to the noun ‘Politicians’ but the active participle clause ‘relying on…’ uses verb–ing and doesn’t need the relative pronoun ‘who’.
7
7 | a) We like to use ‘by’ after ‘cause’ – ‘caused by…’ and ‘in’ after ‘result’ – ‘resulted in…’
‘By’ and ‘in’ are examples of prepositions. See our Cause and Effect Prepositions quiz for more.
8
8 | b) More prepositions practice for you here! A common phrase we use is ‘on account of…’ which means ‘because of…’
Remember it, and learn more here: Band 7 reason clauses.
9
9 | d) is wrong because before the adjective ‘probable’ we should use an adverb ‘highly’, not another adjective ‘high’.
Learn about these phrases in our lesson: Speaking Part 3 Question Types
10
10 | a) Topic sentences are used at the start of essay body paragraphs to introduce the topic of the paragraph. They are important to help the paragraphs glue together. Make sure you use them in your IELTS essays!
For more, see our lesson on Topic Sentences.
We hope these quizzes have been useful for you. Keep up the good work!
