Unit 8.2 & 8.3

Question 1

a Never before … 
b Only once in my life … 
c Scarcely … when … 
d No sooner … (past perfect) than …
e Hardly … when … 
f Not until last month ...
g Seldom ...
h Rarely ...
i Had it not been for the fact that ...

Answer 1

a Never before … 
b Only once in my life … 
c Scarcely … when … 
d No sooner … (past perfect) than …
e Hardly … when … 
f Not until last month ...
g Seldom ...
h Rarely ...
i Had it not been for the fact that ...

Question 2

seldom

Answer 2

almost never:

Now that we have a baby, we seldom get the chance to go to the cinema.

Question 3

forlorn

Answer 3

very unlikely to be achieved or to succeed:

Their only hope now is that the outside world will intervene but it is an increasingly forlorn hope.

Question 4

deafening/thunderous

Answer 4

extremely loud:

The music was deafening.

Question 5

not sleep a wink

Answer 5

to not sleep at all:

I didn’t sleep a wink last night with all that noise.

Question 6

crawl

Answer 6

to move slowly or with difficulty, especially with your body stretched out along the ground or on hands and knees:
The child crawled across the floor.
The injured soldier crawled to safety.

Question 7

outcry

Answer 7

a strong expression of anger and disapproval about something, made by a group of people or by the public:
The release from prison of two of the terrorists has provoked a public outcry.

Question 8

stool

Answer 8

a seat without any support for the back or arms:

a bar/kitchen/piano stool

Question 9

steel yourself

Answer 9

to prepare yourself to do something that you know will be unpleasant or upsetting:
He steeled himself not to look away.

Question 10

lash down

Answer 10

to rain in large amounts and with a lot of force

It’s been lashing down for an hour.

Question 11

rickety

Answer 11

in bad condition and therefore weak and likely to break:
Careful! That chair’s a bit rickety.
She slowly climbed the rickety wooden steps.

Question 12

relish

Answer 12

to like or enjoy something:

I always relish a challenge.

Question 13

dead end

Answer 13

a situation that has no hope of making progress:

Negotiators have reached a dead end in their attempts to find a peaceful solution.

Question 14

trepidation

Answer 14

fear or worry about what is going to happen:

We view future developments with some trepidation.

Question 15

welcoming

Answer 15

friendly or making you feel welcome:

She gave everyone a welcoming smile.

Question 16

a The question is complex …
b All things considered …
c … is a separate issue.
d One definite disadvantage is …
e That is not to say that …
f The third and perhaps most important …
g Take the area of …
h To evaluate this …
i By way of illustration …
j Moving on to …
k Taking everything into account …
l More specifically …

Answer 16

a The question is complex …
b All things considered …
c … is a separate issue.
d One definite disadvantage is …
e That is not to say that …
f The third and perhaps most important …
g Take the area of …
h To evaluate this …
i By way of illustration …
j Moving on to …
k Taking everything into account …
l More specifically …

Question 17

occupancy

Answer 17

someone’s use of a room or building for the purposes of living or working:
The family’s occupancy of the apartment lasted only six months.

Question 18

out of the frame

Answer 18

not involved in something, or not being considered for something
With Steve out of the frame, I knew I had a chance with Sarah.

Question 19

take place

Answer 19

to happen:

The concert takes place next Thursday.

Question 20

out of place

Answer 20

in the wrong place or looking wrong:

The boy looked uncomfortable and out of place among the adults.

Question 21

in place

Answer 21

If something is in place, it is in its usual or correct position:
The chairs are all in place.
He screwed the shelf in place.

organized:
The arrangements are all in place for the concert next Thursday.

Question 22

burn your boats/bridges

Answer 22

If you are in a situation and you burn your boats/bridges, you destroy all possible ways of going back to that situation.

Question 23

in a nutshell

Answer 23

very briefly, giving only the main points:

“What went wrong?” “In a nutshell, everything.”

Question 24

trivial

Answer 24

having little value or importance:
I don’t know why he gets so upset about something so trivial.
Sexual harassment in the workplace is not a trivial matter.

A trivial problem is easy to solve:
Getting computers to understand human language is not a trivial problem.

Question 25

have money to burn

Answer 25

to spend a lot of money on things that are not necessary:

I don’t know what her job is but she certainly seems to have money to burn.

Question 26

get/have your fingers burned

Answer 26

to suffer unpleasant results of an action, especially loss of money, so you do not want to do the same thing again:
She’d invested extensively in stocks and got her fingers burned when the market collapsed.

Question 27

burn a hole in sb’s pocket

Answer 27

If money is burning a hole in your pocket, you are very eager to spend it.

Question 28

the best of both worlds

Answer 28

a situation in which you can enjoy the advantages of two very different things at the same time:
She works in the city and lives in the country, so she gets the best of both worlds.

Question 29

burn the midnight oil

Answer 29

to work late into the night:

Chris is asleep after burning the midnight oil trying to finish his article

Question 30

fiddle

Answer 30

to move things about or touch things with no particular purpose:
Put your papers down and stop fiddling with them!

Question 31

fiddle while Rome burns

Answer 31

to enjoy yourself or continue working as normal and not give any attention to something important and unpleasant that is happening that you should be taking action to prevent:
Environmentalists claimed governments were fiddling while Rome burned.

Question 32

readily

Answer 32

quickly, immediately, willingly, or without any problem:
He readily agreed to help.
Larger sizes are readily available.