Miscellaneous exercises

Ex. 1. Open the brackets

a) Pay attention to the number of the nouns in - ics.

1. The new quantum mechanics (to be) introduced by Heisenberg and Shrodinger in the early 1920s.

2. Major tactics (to be) concerned with the movement of large units into battle.

3. The fact that a word has several meanings is the principal way in which semantics (to contribute) to a better understanding of humour.

4. The statistics of trade (to show) remarkable progress.

5. Electronics (to treat) of electrons.

6. The ethics of the proletariat (to be) quite different from the ethics of the bourgeoisie.

7. All that is necessary for a complicated series of operations is to feed into the machine a card, carrying the directions in code. Electronics (to do) the rest.

8. Acoustics (to be) the science of sound and hearing.

9. The acoustics of this hall (to be) good.

10. Semantics (to be) the branch of the study of language concerned with meanings.

11. The growth of trade and industry led to extensions in the fields in which statistics (to be) collected.

12. Statistics (to be) the science of collecting, arranging and using numbers which express facts.

b) Pay attention to the number of the geographical names, names of books, newspapers, magazines, organizations, parks, etc. (underlined words).

1. Geologically the Balkans (to be) composed chiefly of sedimentary strata.
2. Every land has its own peculiar mining customs and the United States (to be) no exception.
3. Athens (to be) the capital of Greece.
4. The Canterbury Tales (to be) unfinished.
5. The Times (not to publish) the strip cartoons that are so common in many other papers.
6. The Heroical Epistles (to be) supposed to be written by illustrious and unfortunate personages in English history to the objects of their love.
7. He thinks that of all the art magazines he has read the ARTS (to be) the most comprehensive.
8. The Seychelles Islands (to produce) no oil.

9. The Boy Scouts supposed to be a broad organization of British youth (to be) compared to a disciplined political organization.

10. The Brecon Beacons covering 515 square miles of some of the finest scenery in Britain (to have) been declared a national park.

11. Two years latter he wrote “The Rivals” which (to be) quickly followed by a series of comic stories.

12. Of Coleridge’s prose works, the Lectures on Shakespeare (to be) deservedly the most famous.

c) The subject which is a noun preceded by a cardinal numeral and denoting time requires a singular verb of the sentence as it implies the period of time. Sometimes the context will require the plural only.

1. The forty-eight hours that followed his searching (to be) among the darkest in Dartie’s life.

2. Six weeks (to be) not really long.

3. We were badly in need of a little tidying-up, so fifteen minutes before our appointment with Gordon (to be) a welcome interval.

4. They were not prepared to say what area the whole plant covers. But even by using a car to travel between the main sections our three hours (to be) too short to see everything.

1. “The three years between 1909 and 1912 (to be) among our blackest” Jane said.
2. There (to be) twenty-four hours in each day.
3. There were complaints that thirty days (to be) a long time.
4. You’re about twenty-one. I am twenty-six, and five years period (to make) a lot of difference for some people.
5. Three weeks (to be) twenty-one days.