|
Sentences from
old exam papers
SDU - Odense
University
English
Department
|
EXERCISE SET 1
ES1) Claude was a successful producer who lived in a big house that was an
exact reproduction of the old Dupuy mansion near Biloxi.
ES2) Todd wondered if it might not be true that actors try too hard to
please their critics.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1986
ES3) Where they went then I cannot say, but having entered into
Himmelfarber's employ they assured us that that was the last time
they would ever trouble us.
ES4) By barging into the Gulf of Sidra, Reagan gave Kadaffi a bloody nose,
but it was obvious that the volatile Libyan leader had not been
effectively intimidated.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1987
ES5) Deciding not to risk turmoil in the contra's high command, the
administration opposed a recent effort to purge senior officers who
had served under the old Somoza dictatorship.
ES6) Hooker was a Puritan divine whose relatively liberal views upon
baptismal efficacy and inward preparation for grace caused him to be
exiled from Massachusetts into the wilderness of Connecticut.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1988
ES7) Having received the encouraging test result, he had started telling
people who asked him how he was feeling that he had felt all right
for the last few days.
ES8) The main drawback of the huge 'gondolas' often used for grapes in
California is that many of the grapes at the bottom are broken long
before they reach the winery.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1988
ES9) While he shaved he thought about the fact that since the moment when
he had brought her the news of Alun's death Gwen had not mentioned
him in any way.
ES10) It is clearly very important, particularly in a democracy, that as
many of us as possible should know how our society is organised and
what our rights are in that society.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1989
ES11) In view of the fate that awaited a man imprisoned for debt in those
days, it is fortunate that Johnson had one or two solvent
friends.
ES12) The next fifteen years in the history of the Dictionary were taken up
by the attempts to tackle a problem of production of which nobody had
any previous experience.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1989
ES13) Although I bought the cheap rayon garment to please myself, I bought
the expensive silk one because always to wear clothes of that quality
is an unwritten term of my contract.
ES14) To live with my Mother meant living according to her beliefs, which
were in almost every way inconsistent with what I had learned
elsewhere.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1990
ES15) Against a backdrop of riots in Britain and the bombing of at least
six British bookshops, it is hardly surprising that voices have been
raised against a paperback edition.
ES16) The two consortia which were front-runners to build and run the rail
link now believe they cannot make sufficient money from the project
unless it is supported by gorvernment funding.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1990
ES17) It seems highly unlikely that the new government's task will be made
any easier by the thousands of public servants who have been
appointed by the military.
ES18) I feel I have lit a fire inside our own camp, and there is no knowing
how it will spread or who will put it out.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1991
ES19) The old man scratched his thin white beard and talked to himself of
his plans for increasing the productiveness of the fields the
community had recently put at his disposal.
ES20) That a dunce like Rosenblatt should find a host of adherents in
Washington raised very serious questions about the sanctity and
durability of American government.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1991
ES21) Robyn was well aware that though clothes serve the very practical
purpose of covering our bodies, they also convey messages about who
we are, what we are doing and how we feel.
ES22) Jackson also insisted he could have produced the eleventh edition
more efficiently and without great indebtedness to banks by
periodically issuing single volumes to generate a continuous stream
of revenue.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1992
ES23) He didn't tell Tessa that every call to this phone was being
monitored and two men were watching over the house to prevent Moscow
from trying to kidnap the children.
ES24) By the time Sophia arrived at the house, two heavily built men who
answered to Bret were rolling up the overalls they had worn to
investigate every inch of the attic.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, MAY 1992
ES25) Though I did not remember ever wanting Toby and the girl that he was now
living with to join us, the staff apparently had been expecting
them.
ES26) Anna, for her part, withdrew altogether behind her usual defences,
and sometimes made a worsening of her symptoms a feeble excuse for
not coming to me.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERISTY, JANUARY 1993
ES27) After Bush compared himself to a Roman gladiator who escaped certain death
by biting a lion, the news that he has sacked four speechwriters is
not entirely surprising.
ES28) A United Nations resolution authorising the use of force to achieve
limited humanitarian goals in the former Yugoslavia has been agreed
by the United States, Britain, and France.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1993
ES29) Brian is confident that by leaning over the balustrade as far as he
can he'll get a shot of a palm tree that can be spliced in later.
ES30) It is notoriously difficult to certify the newness of any joke but
subjects like abstract modern art and modern phychiatry suggest new
material and new uses of literalism and reversal.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1994
ES31) President Reagan is now taking the position that he's proud of every effort
he's made for the Contras, whom he calls "the moral equivalent of our
founding fathers".
ES32) A customs official confiscated an anthology I had edited some years
ago, which I brought along to give away to Russians I met who might
be interested in American poetry.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1994
ES33) The only reason I minded his being there was my ludicrous physique and
the fact I would have to take off my eye patch before I went in.
ES34) Finally a politically correct word processor has been invented which
will automatically warn writers against words likely to offend those
worried about their sex, race, age or what have you
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, AUGUST 1994
ES35) Having completed this story of my life, I find it prudent to hurry
back now to before the beginning and to make an apology to arriving
guests.
ES36) A solicitor goes into an apartment, sits down at a table for lunch,
then walks to the first-floor window where he catches a ball thrown
by a child on the street.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1995
ES37) An unexpected candidate had upset the machine which the Judge with
such patient care had assembled over the years to keep random
happenings in the electoral process at a minimum.
ES38) When he told Cordelia at no great length of taking Anna to see some
person who might advance her cause, Cordelia listened silently with
an almost truly blank expression.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, AUGUST 1995
ES39) They implied ungraciously that if the cradle-snatching Londoner and
his girl wanted to use the church as their private concert hall, they
could do their cleaning for themselves.
ES40) If I could have woven together the threads I had gathered on this
case, it would have made such a horrible web that nobody would have
wanted to come into my parlor.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1996
ES41) Dad liked to eat fish and chips whenever he visited England, and I
grew fond of it too, although the fearsomely acid pickled onion was
something I still denied myself.
ES42) When Fiona was wrenched away at very short notice, there were both
the guilt of the betrayer and all the natural anxieties she had about
the risks she was running.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1996
ES43) When war came again, Helmut joined a local fire brigade at the age of
12 and tried to douse the flames that the relentless Allied fire
bombings ignited in his hometown.
ES44) One reason the government has found it hard to stamp out the piracy
of foreign compact discs is that some of the counterfeiters have
connections to high-ranking military officials.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1997
ES45) With the realization that athletic achievement is bumping against a
ceiling, scientists are mapping the body's limits, trying to
understand where improvement is still possible and what holds it
back.
ES46) What scientists have done is pinpoint the systems that hold back atheletic
achievement and focus all of their training tricks on those from
which they might still coax significant gains.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1997
ES47) The real significance of the study published last week is the
possiblity that doctors might identify Alzheimer's before it does any
damage and improve their ability to treat it.
ES48) The whole performance of the interview indicates that you are quite a
swell fellow just by being you, whereas we know that what merit we
have resides elsewhere.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 1998
ES49) Being a tailor he believed his job was to place himself in the
clothes of whoever he was cutting for and become that person until
the rightful owner claimed them.
ES50) It was entirely appropriate, in Pendel's opinon, that Osnard's
arrival at the company should have been accompanied by a clap of
thunder and what Benny would have called the trimmings.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 1998
ES51) Although the worst part of the encounter was over, without yet having
had on him the numbing effect it soon would have, he still felt
nervous.
ES52) Had his failure in school been caused by the fact that most of the
subjects were of no interest to him, he would have worked hard in
those that did interest him.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERISTY, JANUARY 1999
ES53) Drosoula maintained that everyone should know you could only eat
snails that had been feeding on thyme, and Pelagia, whilst not
believing this at all, became yet more anxious nonetheless.
ES54) Jeremy told Matthew he knew Sophie, but omitted to mention that she
had been called a traitor by several of the delegates and that she
had come to see him.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERISTY, JUNE 1999
ES55) I take it that you would confirm that you have beed making payments
to Mr Warren which allowed him to pay blackmail demands, at least for
a while.
ES56) He was struck by the illuminating idea that perhaps the problem was
not that it was impossible for him to write a history, but that
History itself was impossible.
OLD EXAM, ODENSE UNIVERISTY, JANUARY 2000
ES57) I did not stay long in Paris, but that week proved sufficient to
engender between him and me that fake chumminess which he had such a
talent for
ES58) If you judged from the number of people on their way to friendly
gatherings, you might think that no one was at home to give them
welcome when they arrived
|