Cover of the textbook English File Advanced - Student's Book

The key answer of exercise 7

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 7B - A masterpiece? for the textbook English File Advanced - Student's Book with authors Christina Latham-Koenig, Clive Oxenden, Jerry Lambert and Kate Chomacki from Oxford University Press

Question

  1. Complete the bold idioms with a colour from the list.
  2. With a partner, say what you think the idioms mean.

Answer

  1. out of the blue = suddenly, unexpectedly
  2. the black market = an illegal form of trade in which foreign money, or goods that are difficult to obtain, are bought and sold
  3. red tape = bureaucracy; official rules that seem more complicated than necessary and prevent things from being done quickly
  4. a white lie = a harmless or small lie, especially one that you tell to avoid hurting sb
  5. (see everything in) black and white = way that makes people or things seem completely bad or good, or completely right or wrong
  6. a white elephant = a thing that is useless and no longer needed, although it may have cost a lot of money
  7. a grey area = an area of a subject or situation that is not clear or does not fit into a particular group and is therefore difficult to define or deal with
  8. a red herring = an unimportant fact, idea, event, etc. that takes people's attention away from the important ones