FCE Use of English Part 4, Test 22

Answers and explanations

1. How long that river. We use reported speech in the second sentence with all the necessary changes. Don’t forget to change ‘this’ to ‘that’.
2. Hardly/barely any/almost no fuel left. Any of the given structures conveys the idea that the fuel level is very low. Remember to check the length of your answer not to go over the five-word limit!
3. Her house up for sale. To put something up for sale is not the same as to put it ‘on sale’. The latter refers to selling something at a discount – no such idea is expressed in the original sentence.
4. Last quarter came as a. To come as a surprise means to be unexpected. Note the usage of the past simple – failing to choose it will give you points.
5. Advised against quitting the job. To advise (somebody) against (doing) something means telling somebody not to do it because they believe it is a bad idea. ‘Just yet’ means ‘for now, for the time being’.
6. Assured me that he would. Even though ‘will’ is not used explicitly in the original sentence, its usage is implied. Because of the reported speech structure, we transform it to ‘would’. To assure somebody means to promise somebody something in order to make them feel better.
7. Took the boss a while. When something takes you a while, it means you need a considerable amount of time to do it.
8. Used to be much lower. The comparison here is with ‘today’, and the original sentence clearly shows that nowadays the prices are higher. We switch the phrasing accordingly; do include ‘much’ in the comparison.
9. So long as/as long as. Both structures have the same meaning, so either will do; you are probably much more familiar with the second one, but the first one works to the same effect.
10. Tip less often according to. Make sure to include ‘according to’ – this structure helps us cite the source of our information (the statistics).