Cover of the textbook Speakout Advanced - Students' Book

The key answer of exercise 4

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 3.2 - Home from home for the textbook Speakout Advanced - Students' Book with authors Antonia Clare and J. J. Wilson from Pearson Education

Question

  1. Read descriptions 1-5. Are they from a lecture, an ad, or a piece of fiction? How do you know?
  2. Underline the adjectives in Exercise 4A. Are they positive, negative or neutral? Think of more example to describe a place or room.

Answer

a)

  1. a lecture → This is factual information, expressed in formal language, and it isn't selling anything.
  2. a piece of fiction → The extract uses the past tense to describe part of a story and contains thoughts and actions as well as descriptions.
  3. an ad → It contains notes rather than full sentences and adjectives that focus on positive aspects.
  4. a lecture → This is factual information, expressed in formal language, and it isn't selling anything.
  5. a piece of fiction → This uses many adjectives to create an atmosphere and is told in the past tense, which suggests it is a story.

b)

  1. shady → neutral - depends on whether you are in a hot or cold country
  2. gloomy → negative; dejected → negative; dreary → negative; grey → neutral - depends on whether it's describing the colour or the mood
  3. roomy → positive; spacious → positive; good → positive; airy → positive; large → positive
  4. native → neutral; chilly → negative
  5. poky → negative; tiny → negative; cramped → negative; gaudy → negative; red, purple, yellow → neutral