Last check, at speed
Eight gaps. Five seconds each. Say the two times to yourself before you choose.
If I the offer in 2016, I living abroad now. I I had asked more questions at the time. If I the kind of person who asks, I them. I my brother would stop telling me it was the right decision, because I whether it was, and if he talking, I might work it out.
What is being assessed
Three parts. Five minutes of spoken reflection, three minutes of questions from somebody who has read your piece, and the written 300 words with a short reflection.
The criteria are below, and they are the criteria.
Six criteria. Match each to what it looks like when somebody is doing it.
The whole unit on one card
Hold these three
| Hold this | Because |
|---|---|
| The past form marks distance | Sometimes distance in time, sometimes distance from reality. I wish I knew is not about the past. |
| Each clause is marked separately | Two questions — real or unreal, and if unreal, when — asked once per clause. "Mixed" conditionals are just the cases where the answers differ. |
| Two bans | No would after if in an unreal conditional. No wish + would about yourself. |
Four items. Rewrite using the word given.
I did not apply, so I am still here. APPLIED
I am not patient, so I gave up after a month. WERE
It is a pity I cannot play an instrument. COULD
My neighbour’s dog barks all night and it bothers me. WOULD
The unit task
How the thirty minutes run. Two to set up, then rounds of eight: five minutes of reflection, three of questions. Pairs work in parallel and swap. Four minutes at the end for the written reflection.
Part 1 · Spoken reflection · 5 minutes · No notes
Give the reflection from your written piece to somebody who has read it.
Five minutes, four moves, both times marked in every conditional.
- Open with the decision and the evasion inside it.
- Give the counterfactual with a present result — what would be different today.
- State the clean regret and then correct it.
- Include one conditional whose condition is a permanent fact about you.
Part 2 · Questions · 3 minutes · You do not choose these
Your partner has read the piece and heard the reflection, and now asks three questions.
Three minutes. Answer what was asked, including the one you would rather not have been asked.
- Question 1 — and what would be different now?
- Question 2 — what does the clean version hide?
- Question 3 — the listener’s own, built as a now → past conditional about you: if you were less…, you would have…
- You may reject question three’s sentence — but then produce the version you would sign.
Part 3 · Written · 4 minutes at the end
Hand in the 300-word piece with a short reflection underneath.
Sixty words. Three sentences will do.
- Which of the four squares did you avoid, and why do you think that was?
- What did your partner’s now → past sentence get right or wrong about you?
- Which is bigger: the regret about what happened, or the regret about how you handled it?
Where the unit landed
Self-assessment · tick honestly, this is not collected
| Not yet | Getting there | Yes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| I mark each clause of a conditional for its own time | |||
| I never put would after if | |||
| I use wish + past perfect for past regrets | |||
| I use wish + would only about other people | |||
| I choose between wish and hope correctly | |||
| I can build a conditional whose condition is a fact about me |
Three questions. Answer for yourself.
1. Under questioning, which form went first?
2. Compared with Lesson 6’s second round, how did you do?
3. What is the past form actually marking in I wish I knew?
What you can do now
Since Lesson 1 you have added: the past form as a marker of distance rather than only of time; the four combinations of unreal condition and unreal result, built rather than memorised; wish in its four patterns and the one restriction on it; if only; the difference between wish and hope; conditional intonation and the three places stress can land in a wish; and a written register that carries a regret without performing it.
And one idea that is not grammar. The size of what you store should match how much of it you could have worked out — which is why Unit 20 asked you to store more and this unit asked you to store less.
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. How many conditional types are there?
2. Where does would never go?
Next unit — The News I Read. You have spent eight lessons on what did not happen to you. Next: what other people say happened, and how English carries a claim it does not endorse. Reported speech again, but at the level where the modal shifts and the reporting verb chooses your position — claimed, admitted, insisted, conceded.