Week 8 Vocabulary And Grammar Noun Combinations Exercises zn4j

Week 8 – Noun combinations

Practical course – Vocabulary and Grammar

1. The word in bold have been jumbled. Swap them around to make correct collocations. 1 These exams are important and I think it‟s good time you got down to some serious revision. 2 I‟ve got very tight feelings about moving to New Zeeland. Part of me wants to go and part of me wants to stay here. 3 “We can all go in my car,” she said. “It‟ll be a bit of a last squeeze, but it‟s only a short trip.” 4 He speaks with such a close Scottish accent that even I find him difficult to understand – and I‟m English! 5 We can get the money. We can try the bank, you could ask your father and I suppose as a mixed resort we could always sell the car. 6 I was certainly thrown in at the good end when I started teaching as I was given the biggest and the most badly behaved class in the school. 7 I‟m going to ask my boss for a day off on Friday. I‟m in her high books at the moment so I‟m sure she‟ll say yes. 8 It was a broad shave. If the teacher had arrived five minutes earlier, we‟d have been caught red-handed. 2. Circle the correct item. 1 I‟d love to come out tonight, but I can‟t. I‟m too tired. I‟ve had a very heavy / loaded week. 2 Brian‟s losing his job was a full / mixed blessing as it forced him to think about his future and set up what is now a very successful business. 3 As it says in the ment, the Omicron Zoom is the final / last word in digital cameras. 4 I‟ve known him for donkey‟s years. He‟s like a brother to me. He‟s a very close / near friend. 5 He‟s not noisy?! Are you joking? He‟s got the radio on at full / high blast and he‟s singing at the top of his voice. 6 If your parents find out what you have done, you will be in high / deep trouble. 7 The traffic was so heavy / deep in the city centre that it took me two hours to get to the office. 8 There he stood with a broad / full grin on his face. 9 Nobody ever finds themselves at a dead / loose end in New York. There‟s too much going on. 10 Don‟t worry. I will take great / full responsibility if anything goes wrong. 11 She had such a deep / full voice that when she first spoke to me over the phone I thought she was a man. 12 Can you hear the noise they are making next door? I‟ve got a full / good mind to report them to the police. 13 Rising inflation, deep / high unemployment, an enormous trade deficit. How can you say that this government is anything but incompetent? 14 He has high / full hopes of winning the gold medal at next year‟s Olympic Games. 15 It was a near / tight match, with neither player ever getting the upper hand. Balkov finally won 7-6, 6-7, 7-6. 16 Last week I was the only one who didn‟t get a holiday. Now everyone is getting a bonus except me? Well, that‟s the last / final straw. 17 I‟m afraid Roberta is not very well. She‟s in bed with a deep / heavy cold. 18 In general, he was happy with the contract, but there were still a few loose / undone ends that needed tying up before he would sign. 19 The party started at 7:30 and when we got there it was in good / full swing. 20 She needed to make a phone call but she didn‟t have any little / loose change. 3. Choose the correct item. 1 He gave his father back his keys, knowing that to have taken the car would have landed him in [a. full; b. deep; c. close; d. loose] trouble. 2 With the present [a. mixed; b. broad; c. tight; d. high] rate of unemployment, the government stands little chance of being re-elected. 3 She was burning the midnight oil, working into the [a. high; b. heavy; c. small; d. broad] hours to finish her thesis. 4 He decided to take a [a. full; b. close; c. tight; d. small] look at the contract before g it. 5 Look, it‟s started raining. It‟s a [a. heavy; b. broad; c. great; d. good] job we brought an umbrella. 4. Collocate the adjectives below with the correct nouns. Two of the nouns should be used twice. 1 a non-stop ___________ a) conclusion 2 a cushy ___________ b) job 3 a wasted ___________ c) tune 4 a foregone ___________ d) crowd 5 a catchy ___________ e) flight 6 a compulsive ___________ f) speed 7 the public ___________ g) driving licence

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Week 8 – Noun combinations 8 a condemned 9 a broken 10 a strong 11 a total 12 the sole 13 a capacity 14 a vicious 15 a resounding 16 a clean 17 common 18 a bumpy 19 breakneck 20 a remote 21 cutting-edge 22 a mobile 23 small

Practical course – Vocabulary and Grammar

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

h) liar i) journey j) building k) home l) knowledge m) survivor n) language o) possibility p) stranger q) success r) circle s) eye t) technology u) talk

5. Complete the sentences using the nouns from Exercise 4. 1 No other enger got out of the crash alive. She was the sole ______________________ . 2 He‟s got such a cushy ______________________ . He gets to work at eleven, does nothing and leaves at four. 3 He is incapable of telling the truth. He‟s a compulsive ______________________ . 4 They played to a capacity ______________________ wherever they went. No matter how big the venue, not a seat remained empty. 5 They want someone with a clean ______________________ , which counts me out as I was fined for speeding. 6 It was common ______________________ that Sandra was planning to leave the company. 7 His last film was hardly what you‟d call a resounding ______________________ . The critics hated it and it lost over ten million dollars. 8 He is living in a condemned ______________________ on the Bays Road. I wonder where he‟ll go when they pull it down. 9 Not only was the film extremely violent but it also contained a lot of strong ______________________ . 10 Buenos Aires to London in twelve hours? It must have been a non-stop ______________________ . 11 I‟d never met her before. She was a total ______________________ . 12 It‟s very unlikely that he‟ll win. There‟s a remote ______________________ , I suppose. But it would take a miracle. 13 It‟s one of those songs with a really catchy ______________________ . It sticks in your mind. 14 You‟ve travelled 200 miles to see him? But he moved last year. I‟m sorry, it looks like you‟ve had a wasted ______________________ . 15 The pilot said that there was a lot of turbulence en route and that we should expect a bit of a bumpy ______________________ . 16 He was driving around these narrow, winding mountain roads at breakneck ______________________ in a powerful sports car. I was terrified. 17 She had a terrible childhood. Her father left home when she was five and, like most kids from a broken ______________________ , she grew up feeling insecure about relationships. 18 Manchester United are playing the Women‟s Institute third team in the first round of the cup. That Manchester United will win is a foregone ______________________ . 19 This really is cutting-edge ______________________ . You won‟t find a more advanced scanner anywhere on the market. 20 It was a vicious ______________________ . We were losing customers so our sales were down. As a result, we had to put up our prices to cover costs. However, because we had put up our prices we lost more customers. 21 John is hopeless at small ______________________ . He gives one-word answers to anything you ask him! 22 Rather than love in a conventional house, he chose to live in a mobile ______________________ . 23 He says that he hates being on the front page of all the tabloids every other day, which is rubbish because we all know that he loves being in the ______________________ eye.

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Week 8 – Noun combinations

Practical course – Vocabulary and Grammar

6. The words in bold below have been jumbled. Swap them around so that the sentences make sense. 1 Although „Nosia‟ was only founded four years ago, it has become a household dream. 2 The gutter gossip got hold of the story and distorted it out of all recognition. 3 A recurring future about falling bothered him so much that he made an appointment with a psychologist. 4 I read this column in the Daily Herald because it‟s always full of juicy press. 5 In the not-too-distant finish, fossil fuels will have run out and we‟ll have to use alternative sources of energy. 6 They were shouting and waving their arms, clearly in the middle of a heated name. 7 Spiralling damage is making life increasingly difficult. 8 The fans were on the edge of their seats as they watched the nail-biting argument. 9 The flood did irreparable inflation to many of the city‟s oldest buildings. 7. a) Complete the noun combinations by providing the missing noun in column B. The first letter is given and the spaces that follow indicate the number of missing letters. The Associated Words box will provide clues for the missing Column B word. The meaning of the adjective half of the combination (A) is given in the Meaning of A column. A B Meaning of A Association Words 1 a golden O__________ good, not-to-be-missed chance, possibility 2 a husky V____ deep, hoarse sound, speak 3 a straight A_____ honest and truthful question, reply 4 a hefty F___ large money, punishment 5 full M____ maximum exam, points 6 a gaping H___ very big cavity, dig, leak 7 bare F___ without shoes and socks toes, inches 8 rampant I________ rapidly increasing economics, price 9 the hot F________ most people‟s popular, winner 10 a/the wrong N_____ incorrect six, four, nine 11 a ghost T___ empty, abandoned city, village 12 a package H______ with everything organised sun, rest, brochure b) Now complete each of the sentences below with one of the above noun combinations. 1 Hello. Hello. Is Tim there? ... Tim Ford ... Is that 37465? ... Sorry, I must have got the ______________________ . 2 Stop beating about the bush and give me a ______________________ . Did you or did you not leak this information to the press? 3 Twenty out of twenty. You got ______________________ in your composition. Wow. 4 I‟d never go on a ______________________ . I like my independence too much and I hate huge resorts. 5 You shouldn‟t walk around the garden in ______________________ . You could tread on a wasp. 6 I‟m not surprised it sank. There‟s a ______________________ in the bottom of it. 7 If you are caught driving without insurance, not only will you lose your licence but you will also have to pay a ______________________ . 8 Newells Old Boys are the ______________________ to win this year‟s championship, and with the likes of Arano, Jansen and Copani in their side who would bet against them? 9 ______________________ was crippling the country‟s economy. 10 When I spoke to his secretary for the first time, it was on the phone. She had such a ______________________ that I thought I was talking to a man. 11 At night, once the temperatures had dropped there were people everywhere, but during the day it was a ______________________ . 12 A scholarship to study at Cambridge! It was a ______________________ that she just had to take. 8. The sentences below are definitions of noun combinations. Choose the correct noun combination for each definition by matching an adjective (1 – 19) with a noun (a – s). 1 bank 4 the spitting 7 wildest 10 an only 13 a rough 16 a sweeping 19 a sweet 2 a steady 5 poetic 8 a regular 11 an uphill 14 a nervous 17 a crushing 3 scrap 6 a niggling 9 small 12 a split 15 wishful 18 a narrow

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Week 8 – Noun combinations a. guess b. child c. generalisation

d. justice e. second f. wreck

Practical course – Vocabulary and Grammar g. doubt h. thinking i. customer

j. margin k. struggle l. holiday

m. paper n. tooth o. print

p. image q. job r. dreams

s. blow

1 If you go to one particular shop all the time, then the shopkeeper would consider you to be one of these. ______________________ 2 Nobody works on one of these nowadays. ______________________ 3 If it happens in this amount of time, then it happens very quickly indeed. ______________________ 4 You sometimes need some of this in an exam. You might need it to make notes on. 5 „All football fans are hooligans‟ is an example of one of these. ______________________ 6 It‟s only approximate. You don‟t know for sure. ______________________ 7 If you have got one of these, uncertainty just won‟t go away. ______________________ 8 If you are one of these, you should take a holiday and try to relax. Worrying all the time will only make you ill. ______________________ 9 If someone who cheats at a sport without being caught is later disqualified for something he/she didn‟t do, you could say it was this. ______________________ 10 If you work at the same place for a long time and it is probable that you will continue doing so, then you have this. ______________________ 11 If you are this of your mother, then you look just like her. ______________________ 12 If the X party beats Y party in an election, but only wins by one of these, then the Y party only needed a few more votes and they would have won the election. 13 If you have got one of these, then you almost certainly love chocolate. ______________________ 14 If a plan you have is dealt one of these, then something has happened that means your plan will probably have to be abandoned. ______________________ 15 You have bought a lottery ticket. You want to believe that you are going to win but you know what this is. ______________________ 16 It‟s at the bottom of a contract and you should always read it before g anything. ______________________ 17 The economy is a total disaster. Getting the country back on its feet again will be very difficult and will take a lot of time. This is what it will be. ______________________ 18 Of course you are amazed that you won the lottery. You never thought it would happen to you, not even in these. ______________________ 19 He/She has not got any brothers or sisters. ______________________

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