Grade 11 English unit 2: Civilization

The text says: "Today, the Gregorian calendar is the most widely used calendar in the world today." The Julian calendar is mentioned only as the calendar that the Gregorian calendar was made to correct.

The text says that a leap year occurs nearly every four years, when one extra or intercalary day is added on 29 February. This makes the leap year 366 days long.

The phrasal verb table in the unit says that lay off means "stop employment of someone, dismiss." "To put down" is the meaning of lay down, and "to cause something to happen" is the meaning of lead up to.

The unit says a summary contains only the ideas of the original text. Do not add your own opinions, interpretations, deductions or comments.

When we report something in the past ("he said"), we move the tense one step back. The present perfect "have" becomes the past perfect "had". So "I have a new car" becomes "he had a new car".

A yes/no question is reported with "if". The verb moves one step back, so "live" becomes "lived". The word "do" is removed because the sentence is no longer a question.

After make in the active voice, we use the bare infinitive (the infinitive without "to"). So we say "made us study". The "to" form is used only when make is in the passive.

The text says the initial target was to plant 200 million tree samplings. The government later announced that more than 350 million were planted, which was above the target.

A non-defining clause gives extra information. If you remove it, the sentence still has the same meaning. In sentence C, the clause "which is entirely a face to face instruction" adds extra information about the university. In A, B and D, the clause tells us which person or thing is meant, so it is a defining clause.

The past perfect continuous describes actions that began in the past and continued until another action happened in the past. Here, the waiting started earlier and went on until he decided to go home. The form is "had been" plus the -ing verb.