IV. Answer the questions: use would or used to.

N o t e: When the meaning is customary, repeated or habitual activity m the past, used to or

would are interchangeable, е.g. Our teacher used to give her students a written test every Thursday.

She would read them a story every week too.

For greater emphasis on the idea of past custom used to is preferable, е.g. He used to watch a

children's program at that hour.

To express volition, or persistence referring to the past would is usually used; е.g. Several

times he tried to get away, but they would not let him go.

1. How often would you write a composition when you were in the ninth form? 2. Would

your teachers always correct your compositions? 3. Who used to help you with your homework? 4.

What would you do during the summer? 5. Where did you use to go for your vacation? 6. When you

were a child what did you use to do on Saturday afternoon? 7. What would you usually do on

Sunday? 8. When your brother was younger, he used to play tennis, use(d) n't he?

V. Make up short situations (no more than two or three sentences) or

dialogues to illustrate Patterns 1-4

VI. Search the books you read for sentences with these patterns (1-4) to add

up to your student's workbook; practise the best examples in class.

TEXT. A FRESHMAN'S EXPERIENCE From "Daddy Long-Legs" by Jean

Webster

The book "Daddy Long-Legs" by an American writer Jean Webster (1876-1916) is a novel

written in the form of letters. The author of these letters, a young girl, Judy by name, writes them to

her guardian, a rich man whom she has never seen.

Judy was brought up in an orphan asylum where her life was hard. The children were wholly

dependent on charity. They were badly fed and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Judy was

a very bright girl and when she finished school, her guardian sent her to college.

Judy feels very happy about it. She hopes to become a writer and pay back the money spent

on her education by her guardian. About the latter the girl knows almost nothing: she knows that he

is a very tall man. That is why she jokingly calls him Daddy Long-Legs.

This text is one of her letters giving us a glimpse of her early college impressions.

October, 25th

Dear Daddy Long-Legs,

College38 gets nicer and nicer, I like the girls and the teachers and the classes and the

campus39 and the things to eat. We have ice-cream twice a week and we never have corn-meal mush.

38 college: a place of higher education both in the USA and in Great Britain. The oldest universities in Great Britain are Oxford and

Cambridge dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, respectively; the largest is the University of London. Admission to the

universities is by examination and selection. Women are admitted on equal terms with men, but the general proportion of men to

women students is three to one, at Oxford it is nearly five to one, and at Cambridge eight to one.

A college is sometimes a part of a university. For instance the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London are composed of

groups of largely autonomous colleges. On the other hand a college may be quite independent. There is a great number of such

colleges in Great Britain (technical and commercial colleges, colleges of art, etc.),

39 campus: the grounds of a school, college or university

The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you've never

learned. It's very embarrassing at times. I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned

Maurice Maeterlinck,40 and I asked if she was a freshman.41 The joke has gone all over college.

Did you ever hear of Michaelangelo? He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle

Ages. Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him, and the whole class laughed

because I thought he was an archangel. He sounds like an archangel, doesn't he?

But now, when the girls talk about the things that I never heard of, I just keep still and look

them up in the encyclopedia. And anyway, I'm just as bright in class as any of the others, and

brighter than some of them!

And you know, Daddy, I have a new unbreakable rule: never to study at night, no matter how

many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books — I have to, you

know, because there are eighteen blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe what an abyss of

ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself.

I never read "David Copperfield", or "Cinderella", or "lvanhoe", or "Alice in Wonderland", or

"Robinson Crusoe", or "Jane Eyre". I didn't know that Henry the Eighth was married more than once

or that Shelley was a poet. I didn't know that people used to be monkeys, or that George Eliot was a

lady. I had never seen a picture of the "Mona Lisa" and (it's true but you won't believe it) I had never

heard of Sherlock Holmes.

Now I know all of these things and a lot of others besides, but you can see how much I need

to catch up.

November, 15th

Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I'm not used to receiving Christmas presents. Do you

want to know what I bought with the money?

1. A silver watch to wear on my wrist and get me to recitations in time.

2. Matthew Arnold' s42 poems.

3. A hot-water bottle.

4. A dictionary of synonyms (to enlarge my vocabulary).

5. (I don't much like to confess this last item, but I will.) A pair of silk stockings.

And now, Daddy, never say I don't tell all!

It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the silk stockings. Julia

Pendleton, a sophomore, comes into my room to do geometry, and she sits crosslegged on the couch

and wears silk stockings every night. But just wait — as soon as she gets back from vacation, I shall

go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see the miserable creature that I am — but at

least I'm honest; and you knew already, from my asylum record, that I wasn't perfect, didn't you?

But, Daddy, if you'd been dressed in checked ginghams all your life, you'd understand how I

feel. And when I started to the high shool, I entered upon another period even worse than the

checked ginghams. The poor box.6

You can't know how I feared appearing in school in those miserable poor-box dresses. I was

perfectly sure to be put down in class next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would

whisper and giggle and point it out to the others.

To recapitulate (that's the way the English instructor begins every other sentence), I am very

40 Maeterlinck, Maurice (1862-1949): a Belgian poet and dramatist

41 freshman: (for both sexes) the same as the English fresher. First-year students are called freshers only for about a month until they

are used to college (university) life.

42 Arnold Matthew (1822-1888): an English critic and poet 6 poor box: a box (usually in a church) in which money may be placed

to be given to the poor. Here: things given as chanty (food, clothes, etc.).

much obliged for my presents.

I really believe I've finished. Daddy. I've been writing this letter off and on for two days, and

I fear by now you are bored.

But I've been so excited about those new adventures that I must talk to somebody, and you

are the only one I know. If my letters bore you, you can always toss them into the waste-basket.