We began today's class with this presentation:
More work with phrasal verbs, and reviewing the words and phrases from previous classes:
1. For each blank, choose a word from the list below. Some of the words are completions of phrasal verbs based on the verb work. Some words in the list might be used more than once; some might need to be changed to the correct tense:
“Detective Jose Chang here,” I heard myself say. It was my first day at work. I didn’t even have a contract yet. The sergeant had only said that “we’d work ____ the details later.” Like whether I’d be paid overtime or not… But it was a job, and I was happy to have it. I needed the ____, such as health insurance.
The interview had been tough. They had really worked me ____, especially on why I had been out of a job for six months. I had worked ____ a list of reasons for it, but at the end, I just tried to ____ it all over by mentioning that I needed time with my family. Except I hadn’t spoken to my family in five years. In our family, we all have a lot to work ____.
I hadn’t mentioned that I had been trying to work ____ my anxieties with booze. And then stopped. So, yes, I had tried to ____ the issue. It worked.
I do hope this job will work ____. What will I do if it doesn’t? I had ____ it badly in the homicide division in Chicago. It wasn’t just my own case I had destroyed; my mistake had nearly thrown a wrench ____ the works. I had really messed up. Even Mrs. Babsen, my sweet elderly neighbor with six cats, had told me I had ____ it all on myself.
I hoped moving home to Tucson would ____ my career, which it needed, badly. At least in Tucson they wouldn’t ask me about my name. Everyone would assume my father’s family came to work on the railroads, and my mother’s when the river still had water in it all year and the country was named New Spain.
You just knew I would work ____ that last bit, about how the U.S. stole a third of Mexico’s territory in the Mexican-American War, didn’t you? I can get really worked ____, thinking about it still.
over bring gloss up benefits out blow into in through evade jump-start
2. Homework:
Please create a dialogue using 10 of the words/phrases in the list below or the phrasal verbs in the exercise above.
larger trends at work
eye-rolling
punch line
over the top
To pull any/your punches
to overstate the case
bent [entrepreneurial bent]
to channel
to streamline
paywall
job security
word of mouth
the more the merrier
to jump-start
to make [the, a] case for
what they wanted out of life
to be struck by
to pull clear (of)
to settle (an argument, a question)
setting themselves up (for)
to face the risks
special interest groups
to plug in
dead-end job
to end up
(You can download a PDF version of these exercises from
here.)
An unofficial English-language
