116
IN THIS UNIT
GRAMMAR
• third conditional
• modals (past deduction)
VOCABULARY
• regrets
• collocations (4)
SCENARIO
• reaching a decision
• discussing mistakes
STUDY SKILLS
• summarising
WRITING SKILLS
• a cause and effect essay
Regrets
12.1
MISTAKES?
12
Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
Honore De Balzac, 1799–1850, French novelist
SPEAKING
1
a
Work in groups. Look at the
following activities. In your opinion, is
each one:
a
quite a serious mistake?
b
a mistake, but not a serious one?
c
not a mistake at all?
•
sending an email to the wrong friend
•
sharing a funny picture at school
•
breaking a promise
•
saying nothing when you get too
much change in a supermarket
•
parking in someone else’s space at
work
•
driving at speed on a motorway
•
forgetting someone’s name
•
getting a friend to help with the
homework
•
making your CV/resume better by
not including information or putting
incorrect information
•
not telling parents the whole truth so
they don’t worry
1
b
Think of one more activity for a), b)
and c) in Exercise 1a. Then discuss your
ideas in groups.
1
As
Larry Walters
was
sitting in his backyard, when
he thought about achieving
his dream of flying by using
balloons. So, after he’d
bought forty-five weather
balloons from a local store,
Larry filled them with gas
and attached them to his
chair. He thought he might
rise about ten metres into
the air before he popped
the balloons and came back
down but he was mistaken.
Still attached to the chair,
Larry floated up to 5,000
metres in the air and stayed
there for fourteen hours.
When he flew near the local
airport, the
pilots
from
passenger aircraft reported
what they saw even though
Great Mistakes?
Our reporter James Colbert picks
his favourite dumb mistakes from
around the world.
