Exercise 4. Read this letter from Maurice, who is on holiday in Britain, to his sister Sally in New Zealand. Put the verbs in a suitable tense, active or passive.

Dear Sally,

How are you? We’ve been having a lovely time. We’re being very well looked after by our hosts. We ⁽¹⁾ _______ (take) sightseeing and we ⁽²⁾ _______ (introduce) to some of their friends, who ⁽³⁾ _______ (make) us feel very welcome. Last night we ⁽⁴⁾ ________ (show) round a castle, by the owner! Most of the land in this area ⁽⁵⁾ ________ (belong) to his family for about five hundred years. Apparently, the land ⁽⁶⁾ ________ (give) to them after one of his ancestors ⁽⁷⁾ ________ (kill) while trying to save the king’s life. Quite romantic, isn’t it?

The castle itself was a little bit disappointing, to be absolutely honest. The owner told us that it ⁽⁸⁾ _______ (suffer) serious damage during a fire about thirty years ago. When it ⁽⁹⁾ _______ (restore) they ⁽¹⁰⁾ _______ (add) central heating and things like that. So once you’re inside it ⁽¹¹⁾ _______ (not feel) much different to any other large, old house. But the owner is a real character. He told us lots of stories about things that ⁽¹²⁾ _______ (happen) to him when he was young. He ⁽¹³⁾ _______ (send) abroad to work in a bank, but he hated it, so he ⁽¹⁴⁾ _______ (behave) very badly in order to ⁽¹⁵⁾ ________ (sack). He kept us laughing for hours. I hope he ⁽¹⁶⁾ _______ (invite) here before we leave.

I’ll have lots more to tell you when we ⁽¹⁷⁾ _______ (get) back. Take care.

Yours affectionately, Maurice

* Exercise 5. Put the verbs in brackets into the correct active or passive tense.

a) Chocolate ⁽¹⁾ is (be) a food that ⁽²⁾ _________ (make) from cocoa beans. It can ⁽³⁾ _________ (eat) or ⁽⁴⁾ _________(drink).

The cocoa plant ⁽⁵⁾ _________ (first/grow) by the Mayas, Toltecs and Aztecs more than 3,000 years ago. They ⁽⁶⁾ _________ (prepare) a drink from the beans and often ⁽⁷⁾ _________ (use) the beans as currency instead of money.

Columbus first ⁽⁸⁾ _________ (take) the beans to Spain in 1502 and Hernán Cortés later ⁽⁹⁾ _________ (introduce) the bitter cocoa-bean drink there, too. There, it ⁽¹⁰⁾ _________ (sweeten) and ⁽¹¹⁾ _________ (flavour) with cinnamon and vanilla and ⁽¹²⁾ _________ (serve) hot. This drink ⁽¹³⁾ _________ (remain) a Spanish secret for almost a hundred years before it ⁽¹⁴⁾ _________ (introduce) to France.

In 1657, a Frenchman ⁽¹⁵⁾ _________ (open) a shop in London selling solid chocolate. Soon, more shops opened in other European capitals. During the 1700s, the English ⁽¹⁶⁾ ________ (improve) chocolate by adding milk. Sweet eating chocolate ⁽¹⁷⁾ _________ (produce) for the first time in 1847 by the English firm Fry and Sons.

* b) Coffee ⁽¹⁾ is said ( say) to originate from Kaffa in Ethiopia and most species of coffee plant ⁽²⁾ _________ (find) in the tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere. The species which ⁽³⁾ ________ (think) to be the earliest coffee plant ⁽⁴⁾ ________ (ever / cultivate) by man is Coffee arabica. Today it ⁽⁵⁾ _________ (grow) mostly in Latin America.

The coffee shrub ⁽⁶⁾ ________ (reach) a height of 8-10 metres and ⁽⁷⁾ _________ (have) white scented flowers. It ⁽⁸⁾ _________ (produce) a red fruit which ⁽⁹⁾ ________ (call) a cherry. The cherry ⁽¹⁰⁾ _________ (contain) two seeds which ⁽¹¹⁾ __________ (join) together. These seeds, which ⁽¹²⁾ _________ (also/know) as beans, ⁽¹³⁾ _________ (first / roast) and then they ⁽¹⁴⁾ _________ (grind) to make coffee. The grounds ⁽¹⁵⁾_________ (then / process) in a variety of different ways. Sometimes they ⁽¹⁶⁾ _________ (filter) and sometimes they ⁽¹⁷⁾ __________ (soak) in water to make the drink which is popular with so many people. Coffee is available as grounds or as instant coffee powder and (18) _________ (drink) by one third of the world’s population.

Exercise 6. Underline the correct answer.