Inside Out Pre Intermediate.
“Confessions”.
1. Did you use to be a naughty child when you were at primary school?
2. Do you remember any naughty thing you did at that time? Tell the class.
3. How did it end?
Listening comprehension.
1. Listen to these four people talking about naughty things they did when children and
fill in the gaps with the correct words.
(D = Darina; Jo = Joanne; J = Joseph; N = Nicola; M = Matthew)
D: Um, this is a story from when I was about _____________ years old. Um, I had a friend
who lived ______________ door, and one day we were playing in my room and we
decided to make a _______________ concoction, a scientific, um, experiment. So we took
all of my mother’s shampoos and nail varnishes and perfumes, and we poured them all into
the ______________. She came in about half an hour later and went absolutely
___________. She sent my friend home and I wasn’t allowed to go out for a whole
___________ afterwards.
Jo: When I was younger, my sister and I had ___________. We’re twins and we both loved
our dolls. One day, when Kim went to school, she ______________ her doll, and I decided
to cut the hair off her doll with a pair of _______________. When she came back from
school she was very ____________ and she didn’t speak to me for ________________.
J: Well, when I was young, er, I used to live in a ______________, with er, several other
children who lived around. And there was a friend ________________ the road called
David, who had a big plum tree in his garden. Lots of big, fat, ______________ plums used
to come every year. And, er, we quickly found out that if you put one of these plums on a
____________, you could throw the plum quite a long way, and quite ____________. Um,
anyway, also in the road where I lived there was an old man who was always
_______________ about us cycling on the pavement and just generally making a noise, like
children do. Er, I don’t think he ______________ children very much. Anyway, one day
we went over to his house when he was out, and we got lots and lots of plums with our
sticks and ________________ them at his windows, and all his windows were covered in
plums and plum juice and it was a big ______________. Um, and this was revenge for us,
er, for him telling us off, er, all the time. Anyway, it was a _________________ idea
because, um, we lived about a hundred yards away from this man, and he came out of his
house one day when my father was there and he told him, and, er, my father took me inside
and told me __________________.
N: It was when we were living in this house in London and my parents had
_______________ the wall in my sister and my bedroom, and my sister had just
______________ to write. And I wrote her name on the wall in her _______________ so
that my parents thought that she’d done it. And she got into _______________ with my
parents. My mother was very angry. And I never told anybody that I did it.
M: I remember one ______________ there was a lot of snow and my friends and I decided
to make some ___________________. But this time we made them extra special because
we put ______________ in the snowballs. And then we decided that we would throw the
snowballs at the passing cars at the road ______________. And, um, we threw snowballs at
one car in particular and it broke the window of the car. The guy _____________ over, got
out of his car, and he started chasing us. And we ran, had to hop ______________ and go
through neighbours’ backyards and finally we got away.
Exercise: Fill in the blanks with the correct tense forms of the verbs in the brackets
1. It ______ (rain) since last night, and it ______ ( look ) as if it may rain for the rest of the
day.
2. My school ______ ( hold ) a food-and-fun fair next month to raise money for the school
building-fund.
3. Look! Those bees ______ ( buzz ) round the flowers. The bees ______ not only ______ (
collect ) honey, but they ______ ( pollinate ) the flowers as well.
4. Mary told him what ______ ( happen ) to his dog, so he ______ ( run )home to see how
it ______ ( be ).
5. ______ the taxi ______ ( come ) yet ? It ______ ( be ) already ten minutes late. I hope it
______ ( be ) here soon.
6. We ______ ( go ) shopping last weekend. There ______ ( be ) a great crowd at the
shopping center. Most of the people ______ ( do ) their New Year's shopping.
7. It ______ ( be ) a fine morning today. The birds ______ ( sing ) in the trees, and there
______ ( be ) not a cloud in the sky.
8. That child ______ always ______ ( ask ) questions. Sometimes he ______ ( ask ) such
complicated questions that I ______ ( become ) puzzled, too.
9. I thought that the grass ______ ( need ) cutting, but the lawnmower ______ ( be ) out of
order. Therefore, I ______ ( cut ) the grass with a pair of shears.
10. Your friends ______ ( wait ) for you for over an hour. Where ______ you ______ ( be )
all this time ? You ______ ( be ) out for almost four hours.
11. She ______ ( mop ) the floor when her cousin came in. She ______ ( scold ) him
angrily because he ______ ( make ) the floor dirty with his muddy shoes.
12. The police ______ ( investigate ) the robbery that ______ ( take ) place last week. So
far, they ______ ( discover ) nothing and ______ ( arrest ) no one.
13. She ______ ( look ) very worried for the past few days; but when I ______ (ask )what
the matter was, she ______ ( say ) that it ______ ( be ) nothing.
14. She says that she ______ ( send ) the letter a month ago; but, so far, she ______ ( not
receive ) any reply. She ______ ( think ) that her letter ______ ( be ) lost in the post.
15. He walked along the road, wondering what ______ ( happen ) and where all the people
______ ( go ). The streets ______ ( be ) deserted, and the stalls ______ ( be leave ) as they
______ ( be ), with fruit and vegetables arranged in neat rows.
