Answer — Exercise 3

1

• the shock of getting off the bus and seeing the huge shopping centre in the village
• images of the peaceful village where he grew up

2

• mainly past tenses:
• Past Simple to narrate the story and describe feelings (e.g. I went; I walked; I saw; I felt disappointed; I felt worried; It mattered to me)
• Past Perfect Simple to describe things that had happened before he got off the bus (had lived there; I had remembered; had changed; had moved with the times, etc.)
• Past Perfect Continuous to describe feelings that continued up to the point of getting off the bus (had been looking forward to)
• Past Continuous to set the scene (was shining; was expecting)

3

• time expressions: for a long time; 15 years ago; since then; in the days before I went; for years before that; on the day I went; as I got nearer, immediately; from that point on
• linkers: as; also; however, but; so; in fact (to keep the story moving along; to create immediacy; to identify which period of time (before or after arriving in the village) to link sentences and ideas in the text)

4

• adjectives: excited, special, worried, peaceful, traditional, rough, large, modern, trendy, new, beautiful, busy, thriving
• adverbs / adverbial phrases: beyond recognition, at the edge of the village, slowly, right in front of my eyes, immediately, under the trees in the main square verb phrases: looking forward to, took my breath away, expecting the worst, moved with the times

5

• paragraph 1: to introduce the idea of going back to the village where the writer had grown up and how the writer felt about this
• paragraph 2: immediate reactions on getting off the bus in the village
• paragraph 3: further feelings as the writer walks through the village