Your English Test guide

🏖 NATIONAL BEACH DAY Hope you enjoyed the Chris Rea video we posted above. 🎵 “On the Beach” gives us some last rays of summer sunshine as we think about the fine summer we've spent, with autumn now approaching. ☀️🍂 But while you're sitting on the beach, have you ever thought about what you're actually sitting on? Today we're going to look at sand: where it comes from, why it can have different colours, what happens to it over time, and why it may be more useful than you think. 🏖 More than just sand Sand is much more interesting than it looks. Most sand is made from tiny pieces of rock that have been broken down over thousands, or even millions, of years. But it can also contain fragments of shells and other marine organisms. If you examine a handful of sand closely, you may discover that the individual grains are surprisingly different from one another. The colour of sand can give us clues about where it came from. Brilliant white sand may contain coral or quartz, while some black beaches are the result of volcanic activity. On the Hawaiian island of Kamoamoa, for example, a black-sand beach appeared after a volcanic eruption in 1990. This means that the appearance of a beach can tell us something about the geological history of the surrounding area. The age and origin of sand can also affect the size and shape of its grains. Older grains tend to become finer and smoother as they are worn down over time. Waves, wind and weather continually move the grains around, gradually changing their shape. Studying these characteristics can therefore provide clues about the journey the sand has made. And sand isn't only useful for building sandcastles! We use enormous quantities of it to make concrete and glass. It also has an important natural function. Geologists say beaches can protect coastlines from the power of the sea, sometimes more effectively than modern coastal technology. So that ordinary-looking sand beneath your feet may be doing a surprisingly important job. 🔎 IELTS Reading Challenge In IELTS Reading, questions in a set will normally follow the order of the information in the text. But we're doing something a little different today. This exercise is specifically designed to practise skimming and scanning, so the questions are deliberately mixed up. First, skim the text to get a general idea of what each paragraph is about. Then scan it to find the specific information you need for each answer. Don't expect the next answer to appear further down the text. You may need to go backwards as well as forwards! Six questions are coming up. 👇 #NationalBeachDay #IELTS #IELTSReading #LearnEnglish #EnglishVocabulary #IELTSAAA 📚 Source material: Adapted from an IELTS reading activity in New Insight into IELTS, Vanessa Jakeman & Clare McDowell, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 44. Original source: BBC Focus Magazine.

📍 CONTEXT: James boasts: “I got 95% in my maths test!” His sister (who got 100%) replies: 🎙 “Big deal!”

📍 CONTEXT: Emma tells everyone about a mistake Jack had asked her to keep secret. Jack replies: 🎙 “Thanks a lot!”

📍 CONTEXT: Tom has failed his driving test four times. He says: “I'll definitely pass tomorrow.” His sister replies: 🎙 “Yeah, right!”

📍 CONTEXT: Tom has failed his driving test four times. He says: “I'll definitely pass tomorrow.” His sister replies: 🎙 “Yeah, right!”

📍 CONTEXT: Mark arrives at work soaking wet. His colleague says, “You got caught in the rain.” Mark replies: 🎙 “You don't say!”

📍 CONTEXT: Anna says, “Finding a reasonably priced flat in this city is impossible.” Ben replies: 🎙 “Tell me about it!”

🐄 THE BOVINE VIEW 🤣 It’s Friday, and it’s Hilda and Maude’s last afternoon in the garden 🏠. Next week, after their summer🏝 break, they’ll be back in the kitchen.💛 And what a story to finish the summer with. 🤖 This week, Beijing hosted the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games. 🏆 More than 2,000 robots🤖 from 666 teams and 16 countries 🌎 competed in everything from running and football ⚽️ to martial arts,👊 weightlifting🏋️‍♀️, dancing 🎧 and even cheerleading.🤩 The robot cheerleaders performed synchronised routines with pom-poms, jumps and acrobatics. There was just one slight problem. Some of them kept falling over. 🤖💥 🎥 Watch them here:👈 This got Hilda and Maude thinking.🤔🤔 If you were about to send a robot out to perform, there is one traditional English expression you might want to avoid: 🦵 BREAK A LEG! Strangely, Break a leg! means: 🍀 GOOD LUCK! 🎭 WHY DO WE SAY “BREAK A LEG”? Nobody knows for certain. The expression is strongly associated with the theatre, where directly wishing an actor “Good luck!” was traditionally considered unlucky. One explanation is that performers therefore wished each other something apparently bad instead. But break a leg got the cows wondering about some other expressions where English seems to point you in completely the wrong direction. 🐄 FAT 🌟OR SLIM 👩? “Fat chance of that happening!” Surely a fat chance ought to mean a BIG chance? No. FAT CHANCE = VERY LITTLE CHANCE And what about: “There's only a slim chance.” Surely slim should be the opposite of fat? No again. SLIM CHANCE = VERY LITTLE CHANCE So somehow: FAT CHANCE ≈ SLIM CHANCE Two opposites have ended up meaning virtually the same thing. 🇬🇧🇺🇸 COULD OR COULDN’T CARE LESS? In British English: 🇬🇧 “I couldn't care less.” This is perfectly logical. Your caring has reached rock bottom. It couldn't possibly go any lower. = I DON'T CARE AT ALL. But in American English, you'll also hear: 🇺🇸 “I could care less.” Literally, that says you could care less, so you must still care at least a little. Yet it is commonly used to mean exactly the same thing: = I DON'T CARE AT ALL. Sometimes knowing every word in an English expression still isn't enough to know what somebody means. 🐄 THIS WEEK'S QUIZ❓ So, in the quiz below, we're going to test some more familiar-looking English phrases whose intended meaning can be very different from their literal meaning. What do they actually mean? 👇 Take the five-question quiz below. #TheBovineView #LearnEnglish #AdvancedEnglish #EnglishIdioms #EnglishListening

🎉 NATIONAL JUST BECAUSE DAY 📅 August 27 Today is National Just Because Day! It's a day to do something simply because you feel like it. No special reason needed. 😊 🗣 THE LANGUAGE “Just because” is a common answer to the question “Why?” It means “for no particular reason” or “simply because I wanted to.” 💐 “Why did you buy me flowers?” “Just because.”🤷‍♂️ 🚶 “Why did you take the long way home?” “Just because.”🤷‍♂️ Compare: because = gives us a reason 👉 I stayed home because I was tired. just because = doesn't give us a specific reason 👉 Why did you do it? 👉 Just because! And depending on your tone, “Just because!” can also sound slightly defiant: “I don't need a reason!” 😁 👇 So, let's see what you would do today. I've given you five options in the poll below. Which one would you choose, just because?🤔 #NationalJustBecauseDay #JustBecauseDay #August27 #English #LearnEnglish

🏁 HOW DID YOU DO? 6/6 🏆 Excellent! 4–5 👍 Very good! 2–3 📚 Keep learning! 0–1 😱 Back to the post!

🇺🇸 IT'S NATIONAL SECONDHAND WARDROBE DAY! 👕👗 Today, August 25, is National Secondhand Wardrobe Day in the United States, encouraging people to give previously owned clothes another life. But we're interested in one particular word: SECONDHAND Why second hand? 🎵 LET'S START WITH SOME SECOND HAND NEWS... Fleetwood Mac opened their legendary 1977 album Rumours with Second Hand News, written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham. 🎬 Fleetwood Mac – Second Hand News [VIDEO LINK] Second-hand news is information you hear from somebody else rather than getting it directly from the original source. If you actually witnessed something yourself, you have first-hand information. But what's the grammar behind first and second? 🔢 CARDINAL OR ORDINAL? English has two important types of numbers. CARDINAL NUMBERS tell us how many: 1 = one 2 = two 3 = three 4 = four 5 = five ORDINAL NUMBERS tell us position or order: 1st = first 2nd = second 3rd = third 4th = fourth 5th = fifth And ordinal numbers appear in some very interesting English expressions and collocations: 1️⃣ FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE If you have first-hand experience of something, you have experienced it yourself rather than hearing about it from somebody else. 2️⃣ SECOND-HAND NEWS Second-hand news reaches you indirectly, through another person. And, of course, Fleetwood Mac gave us 🎵 Second Hand News. 3️⃣ THIRD WHEEL A third wheel is an extra person who feels unwanted or awkward, particularly when spending time with a couple. Think of a bicycle. It needs two wheels. A third wheel isn't needed, so it's extra! That's the idea behind the expression. If two people are together as a couple and you join them, you might feel like the unnecessary third wheel. "I felt like a third wheel on their date." 4️⃣ FOURTH ESTATE The Fourth Estate is a traditional name for the press and news media. But why fourth? Historically, society was divided into different estates, or social orders. In pre-Revolutionary France, there were three: 1️⃣ First Estate: the clergy ⛪️ 2️⃣ Second Estate: the nobility 👑 3️⃣ Third Estate: everyone else 👨‍🌾👩‍🔧 The press wasn't literally another legal estate, but because newspapers and journalists became so influential in public life, the press came to be described as an unofficial Fourth Estate. 📰 So if you hear someone talking about the Fourth Estate, they're talking about the press. 5️⃣ FIFTH COLUMN A fifth column is a group secretly working against a country or organization from within. The expression dates from the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Four military columns were advancing on Madrid, while a supposed fifth column of supporters was said to be operating inside the city. 🤔 So what about SIXTH, SEVENTH, EIGHTH and beyond? Do they have their own special English expressions too? Time for a little Duolingo English Test-style challenge. Try our quiz below👇 to see you knowledge of these type of expressions. #EnglishVocabulary #LearnEnglish #EnglishExpressions #OrdinalNumbers #IELTSAAA