English Collocations in Use Intermediate Book with Answers How Words Work Together for Fluent and Natural English 2nd Edition

ran out of time.
You’ll be sorry 
big time for speaking to me like that! [
informal: extremely
]
Past and future 
The 
past few weeks have been really difficult for Tina’s two grown-up children. They’re both at 
university writing dissertations. Her son’s is on 
early 21st century fiction while her daughter’s is 
about life in 
prehistoric times – she’s not interested in the recent past at all. They are both working 
very hard. They are nearly finished but there are lots of last-minute things left to do. They 
set their 
alarms for five o’clock and get up as soon as the alarm goes off. They work from dawn till dusk
1
and indeed sometimes they stay up until 
the small hours
2
. Tina can’t wait until they stop working 
such 
ungodly hours
3
. It’s 
taking them ages to complete their work but Tina is sure it will eventually 
all be 
worth their while
4
. She is sure they both 
have a great future ahead of them. She thinks they 
will both get good academic jobs 
in the not too distant future. Of course, no one can know what 
the future holds, but I hope she is right. 
1
all day
2
2, 3, 4 a.m. 
3
unreasonably late or early hours
4
worth the time spent
B
collocation
example
comment
spend time
I 
spent some time in South America
when I was younger.
NOT passed in this context – though you 
can say things like 
reading
passes the time.
waste time,
save time
Don’t do it like that. You’re 
wasting
time. You’ll save time if you do it like 
this.
Spend
, 
waste 
and 
save
are often used 
with 
money
as well as 
time
.
tell someone the
time
Can you