Giving advice (Week 4)

Each one us, someday, has needed or given advice to someone regarding life problems. However, we do not know how to give a piece of advice and how people will react to it, if they are going to take it or not. Therefore, I would like to share with you a text which gives some advice on preparing for exams. And I hope it can help you pass your exams with high marks. Now, I'm going to highlight the top ten study tips which appear in the text:

https://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/health-and-support/exam-preparation-ten-study-tips

-Give yourself enough time to study: Many students study the night before the exam, nevertheless this is not the best way to to approach an exam, we have to try to study daily.

-Organize your study space: Studying implies being concentrate and comfortable, thus you have to get rid of all distractions.

-Use flow charts and diagrams: Visual ideas and summarizing your ideas can be very helpful.

-Practice on old exams.

-Explain your answers to others: Explain the topics and the answers that you studied to your parents and little brothers or sisters.

-Organize study groups with friends: Study sessions with your friends may help you to answer your questions and doubts.

-Take regular breaks.

-Snack on brain food: Keep your body and brain well-fuelled by choosing nutritious foods.

-Plan your exam day: Get everything ready well in advance of the exam.

-Drink pelnty of water.

Believe in yourself and go for it.

Moving to the modal verbs, I have found on the Internet this excerpt from “Short stories of famous women”. 

Helen Keller 

"For nineteen months Helen grew bigger and stronger. She was able to walk when she was a year old; she could say a few words.

But one day the child fell ill. She must have been very ill. For days she was laid up with a high fever and soon the parents learned that their darling would never be able to see and hear.

The little child was now doomed to a life of silence and darkness. She could not hear what was said to her and did not know how to talk, she was unable to play with other children.

When Helen was 6 years old her parents took her to Baltimore and then to Washington to famous doctors to find out if they could do something to make her hear and see again, but the doctors could do nothing. The child was hopelessly deaf. Dr. Bell said the Kellers should addressthe Perkins Institution for the blind in Boston and ask if they could send someone to help the child.

It was a wonderful day for Helen Keller when Ann Sullivan arrived in March 1887 to take charge of the child who could neither hear nor speak. Helen was nearly seven, Ann Sullivan was past twenty."

The analysis of this modal verbs is as follows:

-Be + able to + verb infinitive: It expresses ability, someone was successful in doing something in one occasion.

-Could + verb infinitive: In this context expresses an ability in the past.

-Must have + past participle: In this context it expresses probability, to show we are sure something to be true and we have reasons for our belief.

-Should + verb infinitive: It expresses what is the ideal or best thing to do in a situation.

Finally, in terms of the activities that I have done in the last 4 weeks to improve my English, I started reading an interesting book written in English, thus, I have learned some new English words. Besides this, I read news from British and American newspapers, for instance, The Times. Apart from that, I watched some films and English shows, and I also did some grammar exercises.

By Nassira Dahmani