Inglés B1

A Challenging Moment
Inglés B1
A Challenging Moment

Index

Introduction................................................................................................................. 3
Learning Objectives ................................................................................................... 3
1. Vocabulary: Challenges and Experiences, Gradable and Ungradable
Adjectives, Present Perfect Review .................................................................... 3
1.1. To make the present perfect..................................................................................... 5

1.2. Uses ............................................................................................................................... 6

1.3. Questions with Have you ever …? ............................................................................ 7

1.4. Just, Yet, Already ........................................................................................................ 7

2. A Challenging Moment: Writing a Letter and a Story ...................................... 9

3. Past tenses: past simple and past continuous................................................. 10
3.1. Past simple ................................................................................................................. 10

3.2. Past continuous ......................................................................................................... 14

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A Challenging Moment

Introduction
In this chapter you’re going to learn how to talk about difficult or challenging
experiences. You are going to learn how to use gradable and ungradable adjectives to
make your writing more exciting, and how to use the present perfect to talk about life
experiences.
In the second section, you are going to look at some examples of different types of
writing, including a story about a challenging moment in someone’s life and a letter
about planning an event. You can use these examples to help you to write your own
letter and story.
In the final section, we are going to revise some past tenses, including the past simple
and the past continuous.

Learning Objectives
The learning objectives this resource aims to fulfil are the following:

▪ Learning how to talk about challenging or difficult experiences, using gradable

and ungradable adjectives to enhance writing, and the present perfect to talk
about experiences.

▪ An introduction to writing a story and a letter, with examples.

▪ A review of past tenses, including the past simple and the past continuous.

1. Vocabulary: Challenges and Experiences, Gradable and

Ungradable Adjectives, Present Perfect Review
In this chapter you’re going to learn about gradable and ungradable adjectives, talk
about important, significant or challenging moments in a person’s life, write a story about
a challenging moment in your life, and then revise the past tenses.

First, we’re going to think about some moments in a person’s life that might be important,
scary, or challenging and learn some more interesting adjectives to describe them.

First, answer these questions:

▪ In your opinion, what are the most important moments in a person’s life?

▪ Why are they important?

▪ What are the most important life events in your culture?

▪ How do you typically celebrate them?

We’re going to look at different types of adjectives. In these pairs of sentences, the first
sentence uses basic, gradable adjectives. The second sentence uses ungradable
adjectives, which are stronger and more interesting or exciting.

Taking an important exam:

▪ The exam is scary. You feel scared, because the exam is difficult.

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A Challenging Moment

▪ The exam is terrifying. You feel terrified because the exam is impossible.

Your 18th birthday:

▪ You feel happy, you’re having a big party to celebrate.

▪ You feel delighted, you’re having a huge party to celebrate.

Finishing a marathon:

▪ You feel tired, but happy that the race is finished.

▪ You feel exhausted, but ecstatic that the race is finished.

In the first sentences, the adjectives are basic. These are gradable adjectives, which
means we can grade them using quantifiers and adverbs, such as very, quite, not really,
extremely or a little bit.

In the second sentences the adjectives are more exciting. These are ungradable
adjectives, which means we can't grade them using the same quantifiers and adverbs.
With ungradable adjectives we use other adverbs such as completely, totally or
absolutely.

Often, a gradable adjective has direct equivalent ungradable adjectives. Here are some
examples:

▪ Big: huge, massive, enormous

▪ Small: tiny, miniscule

▪ Happy: ecstatic, delighted

▪ Sad: miserable, despondent

▪ Scared: terrified, petrified

▪ Good: excellent, amazing, astonishing, terrific, awesome

▪ Bad: awful, terrible, dreadful

There are more examples, but these are useful, easy changes which will make your
descriptions a lot more interesting.

Let’s use some quantifiers with gradable and ungradable adjectives by thinking of some
more important or challenging moments. Look at these pairs of sentences and decide if
the adjective is gradable or ungradable, and look at the quantifier that comes before it:

▪ “I’m studying at night because I’ve got lots of exams at the moment, I’m quite
tired.”

▪ “I’m studying at night because I’ve got lots of exams at the moment, I’m
completely exhausted.”

▪ “She lives in an absolutely massive house.”

▪ “She lives in a very big house.”

▪ “He wrote his essay in ten minutes, it was very bad.”

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▪ “He wrote his essay in ten minutes, it was completely dreadful.”

▪ “We love living in Paris, but our apartment is absolutely tiny.”

▪ “We love living in Paris, but our apartment is very small.”

Not all ungradable adjectives are extreme like these. Some of them are absolute, which
means they cannot be graded because they refer to something that it true or false. These
adjectives follow the same rules as other ungradable adjectives.

Some examples include: (un)acceptable, dead, perfect, free, universal, true, false,
empty, full, finished.

If you’re not sure about one of these adjectives, and you want to test it, try using it with
“a little bit”, and it will sound wrong:

▪ “I dropped my phone in the pool and now it’s a little bit completely dead!”

▪ “Every culture has music, it’s a little bit absolutely universal.”

Look out!

People make a lot of mistakes with the ungradable adjectives “terrible”, “terrific” and
“terrifying/terrified”:

Terrible = very bad

Terrific = very good

Terrified / Terrifying = Very scared / Very scary (to describe the person or the activity)

A similar mistake is often made with “awful” and “awesome”:

Awful = very bad

Awesome = very good.

Now, we’re going to revise the present perfect tense, which you have probably already
studied.

The present perfect is a tense that describes actions that have happened in a time
period that isn’t finished. We often give a time phrase with the present perfect:

▪ Today, this week, this year and in my lifetime etc.

▪ “Today” is not finished. "This week” is not finished. “This year” is not finished.

▪ Often when we use the present perfect the context is obvious:

▪ “I’ve finished my homework.” = very recently

▪ “I’ve been to Disneyland” = maybe not recently, maybe more than once

1.1. To make the present perfect

I / You / We / They have, or He / She / It has + the past participle

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Regular verbs are formed with ‘ed’, and irregular ones are different. When you learn
irregular verbs, this is normally the third column:

▪ Eat / Ate / Eaten

▪ Take / Took / Taken

▪ Speak / Spoke / Spoken

Affirmative:

▪ I have talked. He has talked. I have spoken. He has spoken.

Negative:

▪ I have not talked. He has not talked. We have not spoken.

Negative contraction:

▪ I’ve not talked / I haven’t talked.

▪ He’s not talked / He hasn’t talked

Interrogative:

▪ Have I spoken? / Has he spoken?

▪ Short replies:

▪ Yes, I have. / No, I haven’t

1.2. Uses

1.2.1. Finished actions in an unfinished time period

When we say that we have done something and it has finished, but we are talking in an
unfinished time period. The action could also have been repeated. But the important
thing is that the time period hasn’t finished yet.

Example

Examples:

I have had breakfast today.

I have spoken to my friend three times this week.

1.2.2. Unfinished actions using ‘for’ and ‘since’

When we talk about actions that started in the past and are continuing in the present,
we can use the present perfect. We use ‘for’ and ‘since’ with different time phrases.

▪ “For” with a period of time:

o I have known her for 10 years.

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o He has lived here for 20 years.

o I have been writing this letter for 10 minutes.

▪ “Since” is for an action that started at a specific time in the past:

o I have lived here since 2010.

o I have had a cold since Saturday.

o I have known Peter since we were children.

1.2.3. Talking about experiences in our lives with the present perfect simple

We can use the Present Perfect Simple for actions that we have started and finished in
our lives.

I have been to Paris.

She has climbed Mount Everest.

We have seen that film you mentioned.

He has never seen that film.

Have you ever been to Paris?

If the person is deceased, we use always use the past simple: Antoni Gaudí designed lots
of famous buildings.

1.3. Questions with Have you ever …?

We can use the present perfect to ask questions about general experience. We often
use the adverb “ever” to mean “in a person’s life”.

▪ Have you ever been to America?

▪ Has he ever written you a letter?

1.4. Just, Yet, Already

These words can tell us about when a present perfect action happened or didn’t
happen in relation to the moment of speaking.

1.4.1. Just

In affirmative, questions and negatives, this word means something happened recently.
The context normally makes it clear what we mean by “recent”:

▪ “I’ve just done the dishes” = I did them 5 minutes ago

▪ “I’ve just finished my exams” = I did them last week

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1.4.2. Already

This is only used in the affirmative. It means something was done or completed before we
expected, or needed:

“I’ve already finished this week’s work, so I can relax today”

“Would you like to come out for dinner?” “No sorry, we’ve already eaten, but we’ll meet
you for a drink!”

1.4.3. Yet

This is only used in questions and negatives. It means something is going to happen, or
you expect it to happen:

“My Dad hasn’t arrived yet, but he’s normally a little bit late”

“Have you booked your flights yet?”

Look out!

In the present perfect, the verb “go” has two different forms, with different meanings:
“been” and “gone”.

“Been” means that someone went to a place and has returned. This might be recently,
or a long time ago:

▪ “We’ve been to the shops this week, so we don’t need to go again”

▪ “She’s been to South America a lot of times for work”

“Gone” means that someone went to a place and hasn’t returned yet. When we say
“He’s gone” it means he is not here at the moment, so it is normally more recent:
“Where’s James?” “He’s gone out for lunch, but he’ll be back in an hour”

“They’ve gone on holiday for the summer, their flight left this morning”

Now answer these questions using the present perfect:

▪ Have you ever travelled to another continent?

▪ Have you planned your weekend yet?

▪ Where have you lived since 2016?

▪ Have you already booked a trip for the holidays?

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2. A Challenging Moment: Writing a Letter and a Story

We’re going to look at two different styles of writing – an email to a friend, and a story.
First, we’re going to use the present perfect tense to write an email about planning a big
party.

Imagine you have received this email from a friend who is helping you to plan the party:

“Hey, how’s it going? The party’s next week so I wanted to ask what you’ve already
organised, and what else needs to be done. I’ve talked to the venue, but they haven’t
confirmed yet. Have you sorted out food and drinks? How about the guestlist? Let me
know!”

Write your response using the present perfect, and the words “just”, “already” and “yet”
to say what has been done, and what needs to be done. Remember to start and end
your email in an appropriate way.

Here is an example response with the present perfect verbs underlined. Your answer is
probably completely different, but look carefully at the verbs and the words you have
used with them:

Hi!

I’m doing great thanks! Thank you for getting in touch with the venue, I'll call them this
afternoon to confirm the space. I’ve just spoken to the catering company, and they can
do the food and drinks, so that’s all sorted! I haven’t looked at the guestlist since
yesterday morning, but I’ll check it this evening after work, I think quite a lot of people
have already confirmed that they’re coming. The other thing we need to organise is
music. I haven’t phoned anyone yet, so we should do that as soon as possible. Have you
got time to organise it?

I can’t wait to see everyone at the party, we haven’t all been together since last Summer!

Take care!

Alex

Now answer these questions:

▪ Have you ever planned a big party or event? What did you have to do?

▪ Did it go well?

▪ What’s the biggest event you have ever attended?

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Now we’re going to look at a different style of writing: telling a story. We’re going to use
some different past tenses, and the adjectives that we have already looked at to
improve our writing. We’re going to read a story about something challenging.

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Here is a story about a canoe race. Look carefully at the adjectives. Find all the past
tense verbs:

When I was 18 years old I competed in the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race, which
starts in the west of England and finishes in the centre of London every March! It’s a race
that takes four days, and it's 200km long. Before the race, I trained for five months to
prepare with my partner, Chris, and we competed in some practice events. My training
was all in the winter, when the weather was freezing!

On the first day of the race, we started very early in the morning. We finished the first day
in 6 hours and camped next to the river. On the second day there was a disaster! We
were carrying our boat to the water, when we both slipped, fell over and broke the boat!
We had to fix it very quickly, and we were both terrified that we might not be able to
continue! Fortunately, the boat was fixed and we were able to continue. On the third
day we joined the River Thames, which was absolutely amazing! However, on the big
river I was very cold, so while I was racing down the Thames I was thinking all the time
about my warm bed at home.

At the end of the race, which is at Westminster Bridge in London, we opened a bottle of
champagne to celebrate like Formula 1 drivers. I was totally exhausted, and I fell asleep
in the car immediately, and I didn’t wake up until the next day. It was an extremely
difficult, challenging experience, but I’m delighted that I finished it. I won’t do it again
though!

Did you find all the ungradable adjectives?

Did you find all the past tense verbs? Do you know what tenses they are in?

If you feel confident using past tenses, try to write your own story about a challenging
experience. If you don’t feel confident with them, don’t worry, we’re going to revise these
past tenses in a moment.

Now answer these questions:

▪ Would you like to participate in a challenging sports event like the canoe race?
Why/Why not?

▪ Do you prefer to participate in sport or watch? Why?

3. Past tenses: past simple and past continuous

3.1. Past simple

Look out!

The Past Simple Tense is a tense that describes an action that was completed, one
time, in a finished time period in the past. With the past simple we often say when an
action happened.

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Example:

I spoke to the teacher yesterday.

Yesterday is a finished time period, so we use the past simple. Other examples of
finished time periods are yesterday, last week, last year, when I was a child, etc.

3.1.1. Forming regular past simple tenses

Regular past tenses are formed by adding an -ed after the infinitive.

Examples of regular verbs:

▪ Want = Wanted

▪ Talk = Talked

He wanted to be a professional football player when he was a child.

We talked on the phone yesterday.

You need to be careful with the spelling of regular past simple verbs. Here are a few rules:

▪ Consonant + y change to –ied:

o Study = Studied

o Carry = Carried

o He studied hard yesterday.

o We carried all our own food on the hike.

▪ If a verb is 1 syllable and ends in consonant-vowel-consonant, we double the last

letter of the verb:

o Stop = Stopped

o Tap = Tapped

o He stopped smoking last year.

o She tapped the table while the song was playing.

The pronunciation of regular past simple verbs can be difficult, but there is a rule. In these
examples the number of syllables is in (parentheses) after the word.

▪ If the verb ends in a “t” or a “d” sound, there is an extra syllable:

o Want (1) = Wanted (2)

o Hate (1) = Hated (2)

o Appreciate (4) = Appreciated (5)

▪ If the verb ends in any other letter, we only pronounce a “d” at the end of the
word with no extra syllable:

o Like (1) = Liked (1)

o Happen (2) = Happened (2)

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o Cook (1) = Cooked (1)

3.1.2. Forming irregular past simple tenses

As I’m sure you already know, English has a lot of exceptions and irregular verbs.

Here are a few examples of irregular past tenses. This is normally the first column when
you learn an irregular verb:

Be Was/were

Become Became

Bring Brought

Come Came

Cut Cut

Drive Drove

Go Went

Know Knew

Lend Lent

Make Made

Sing Sang

Think Thought

Write wrote

Tabla 1. These are just a few examples. There are sometimes patterns, but the best thing is to
learn them by heart.

3.1.3. Affirmative, Negative and Question Forms

Irregular verbs are only irregular in the affirmative. In the negative and question forms, the
form is the same for all verbs (except “be”).

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Affirmative:

▪ I went to the cinema.

▪ I watched a film.

Negative:

▪ I didn’t go to the cinema.

▪ I didn’t watch a film.

Interrogative:

▪ Did you go to the cinema?

▪ Did you watch a film?

The form is the same for every person: I, You, She/He/It, We, They.

3.1.4. The Past Tense of To Be

“To Be” is the only verb that follows a different structure in the past simple negative and
question forms:

▪ Affirmative: I was, you were, She/He/It was, We were, They were.

I was at the meeting yesterday.

▪ Negative: I was not / You were not (I wasn’t / you weren’t)

I wasn’t at the meeting yesterday.

▪ Interrogative: Was I? Were you?

Interrogative: Were you at the meeting yesterday?

3.1.5. Uses

We use the past simple finished actions that happened one time, either recently or a long
time ago. We often include a time phrase to make it clear when the action happened:

▪ I had breakfast at seven o’clock.

▪ I went to school in England.

We can also use the past simple to talk about a past state or habit:

▪ I liked dinosaurs a lot when I was a child.

▪ She didn’t work while she was living in China.

If we put past simple verbs in a sequence, this is the order that the events happened:

▪ I arrived home, opened the door and went in.

▪ He got into bed, turned off the light and went to sleep.

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3.2. Past continuous

The past continuous is made using this formula:

“To Be” in the past simple + verb in –ing form

Example

Example:

Last Saturday, Peter was watching a football match on TV.

We were watching a film at 10pm last night.

3.2.1. Uses

We use the past continuous to talk about an action which started before a specific
moment in the past and continued after. For this reason, it normally needs other verbs or
time phrases to say when the action happened:

▪ We were watching a film while my friend was making dinner.

▪ I was sleeping in my bed when my alarm went off.

3.2.2. Past Continuous as Background

We can use the past continuous to give details of what we were doing in a specific
period.

Let’s look at this example:

Last summer we went to Italy. We were visiting the cities in the North of Italy. We were
driving from one city to another and staying in different hotels every night.

In these sentences, the time period is implied. We know this was all happening during
your holiday in Italy, which is now finished.

3.2.3. Past Continuous for unfinished actions happening at a specific time.

When we mention a specific moment (a time, a day, a date) in the past, we use can the
past continuous to show that the action was in process and unfinished at that time:

At 7:00 o’clock in the morning yesterday, I was having breakfast.

▪ When did you start breakfast? Before 7 o’clock.

▪ When did you finish breakfast? We don’t know.

3.2.4. Past Continuous for interrupted or simultaneous actions.

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When we talk about a short action that happened in the middle of long, continuous
action, we use the past continuous and the past simple with the word “when”. Let’s look
at this sentence from the story about the canoe race:

“We were carrying our boat to the water, when we both slipped, fell over and broke the
boat!”

In this sentence, the long action (we were carrying the boat) is interrupted by short
actions (we slipped, fell over, and broked the boat). The long action is in the past
continuous, and the short actions are in the past simple.

We can also use two past continuous verbs in the same sentence to talk about things
that were happening at the same time. We use the word “while” to connect the actions.
Here’s another sentence from the story about the canoe race:

“...while I was racing down the Thames I was thinking all the time about my warm bed at
home!”

In this sentence, the two actions (racing down the Thames, thinking about my warm bed)
were happening at the same time.

3.2.5. Past Continuous of Going to.

We use the past continuous of going to to describe an action that was planned, or that
you wanted to do, but it didn’t happen in the end.

Example

Example:

I was going to buy some shoes yesterday, but I didn’t have time.

We were going to visit the Eiffel Tower when we were in Paris, but the weather was
terrible!

Now answer these questions using the past simple and past continuous:

▪ What were you doing at 7pm yesterday evening?

▪ What did you do last summer? Did you go anywhere?

▪ Was there anything you were going to do this week that you haven’t had time
for?

▪ What were you doing while you were eating breakfast this morning?

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