Exercise 1: Oliver Twist
Here is the first paragraph of Oliver Twist. All the finite verbs
are highlighted.
Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons
it will be prudent to refrain from
mentioning, and to which I will assign
no fictitious name, there is one
anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse;
and in this workhouse was born; on
a day and date which I need not trouble
myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can
be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the
business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is
prefixed to the head of this chapter. (Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist)
This paragraph refers to two worlds:
- the world of the book and its author, Dickens
- the world of Oliver Twist.
Questions:
- Which of the verbs refer to the second world, that of Oliver?
- Click on the verb(s) you select.
- Are the two worlds clearly separated by the choice of tense?
Exercise 2: KS3 pupil’s writing
This extract is from a KS3 essay about H G Wells's War of the Worlds.
The challenge is to choose tenses in such a way as to distinguish between
the author's world and the world of the events in the story. It starts
well, but then unfortunately becomes confused. All the finite verbs are
highlighted. Click on those whose tense is not appropriate.
At first he seems a
little excited by the encounter of aliens, trying to imagine what they
looked like but by the end he was
'overcome with disgust and dread' so completely changing his opinion.
He also seems apprehensive when he "presently
saw something stirring within the Rocket",
not knowing what it was.
H. G. Wells then starts
to describe their movements. He said
it "rose slowly and painfully out of
the cylinder" he also described
their difficulty to move or breathe due to the painfulness as earth
has a stronger gravitational pull.
He uses many strange
ways of describing them which actually described
a very accurate picture.
If you would like to see the text rewritten with consistent tenses, click
here.
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