Grammar and vocabulary
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Irregular plural nouns
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Noun + passive verb combinations ir
Methods sections
Grammar and vocabulary
1 Irregular plural nouns
1.1 a Write the plural form of nouns 1-12 in the table,
which are common in academic writing. Where
both regular (-s or -es) and irregular plural forms are
possible, write them both.
singular
plural
1 phenomenon
2 datum
3 maximum
4 hypothesis
5 criterion
6 syllabus
7 basis
8 analysis
9 formula
10 minimum
11 curriculum
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Using it-clauses to organise
information
Word families in texts
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Problem words: adopt and adapt
2 Noun + passive verb combinations in Methods
sections
Parts of the Methods section describe things that
'I/we' - that is, the researcher(s) - did. In order to avoic
repeating 'I' or 'we' as the subject of the sentence, the
passive voice is often used instead. A number of noun
+ passive verb combinations are common in Methods
sections.
2.1 What verb commonly follows all three nouns in each
list? (You can find some of these combinations in the
text on page 106.)
1
2
3
4
statistics/lists/reports were corn ___ led
tests/interviews/surveys were con ___ ted
data/samples/specimens were col ___ ted
questionnaires/copies/test papers were
dis __ ted
5 participants/sites/subjects were sel ___ ted
6 responses/measurements/observations were
rec ___ded
7 techniques/guidelines/methods were dev ___ ped
8 investigations/analyses/experiments were
per _____med
12 medium
b Correct any mistakes in these students' extracts.
1 In this dissertation I will test the following three
hypothesis.
2 There is considerable evidence that the medias,
such as television and newspapers, are influencing
people's attitude to sports.
3 The formulae used in the calculations are given in
Appendix 1.
4 In 1901, hours of employment were officially
limited to a maxima of 12 hours a day.
5 The quality of a company's products is the basis
for its growth.
Sims (2002) asks how many times a particular
phenomena must recur before it is no longer
'accidental'.
7 Recent analyses of fish stocks in the Atlantic
Ocean in 2008, 2010 and 2012 has shown a
dramatic decline.
8 Level of funding is an important criteria in the
academic success of a school.
9 Statistical data over the last 20 years shows an
increasingly rapid movement of the population to
urban areas.
10 The lower-secondary school geography syllabis
from six countries were compared.
3 Using it-clauses to organise information
3.1 Read the first sentence and then, in pairs decide if thE
ideas are linked together better in a or b. How is this
better linking done?
There has been considerable research on the spellin{
performance of children with learning difficulties (see
Tyler, 2008). However, to date there has been little
systematic examination of the spelling performance c
the same children on different types of writing. ...
a ... The present study was undertaken in order to
examine the performance of specific groups of
children on a range of writing tasks.
... It was in order to examine the performance of
specific groups of children on a range of writing
tasks that the present study was undertaken.