Grammar for ielts fiona Aish & Jo Tomlinson ■L& 11

A Do you mind / Are you minding 
if 
I 
sit here?
5 
I th in k /I'm thinking 
about learning to sail next year, (meaning = to plan to do)
Free time
languagedownload.ir

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Underline the examples of continuous tenses in the following passage from a Reading
text, then complete the summary below using continuous verbs from the text.
The am ount of leisure tim e available to people has been increasing since the early 
tw entieth century when machines started to be invented to do many labour intensive 
tasks both at w ork and in the home. Previously, people were spending many more hours 
doing basic m enial tasks and as a result had less tim e available fo r hobbies and activities. 
Although recently many people have been com plaining about th e ir w ork life balance, 
studies show that the am ount of free tim e we have has been rising continuously fo r over 
50 years. More people are playing sport on a re g ula r basis nowadays and young people 
are taking up tra d itio n a l style hobbies such as knitting and w alking in the countryside. 
There has also been a large am ount of governm ent investm ent in leisure fa cilitie s in local 
com m unities, which has assisted the uptake of hobbies fo r a range of people including 
children and the elderly. A few years ago, visitors to a local park would see people who 
were playing football o r w alking th e ir dog. However, nowadays people are using the gym or 
a clim bing w a ll as th e ir way of sporting recreation.
Summary
Over the last half century the am ount of personal free tim e that people have
(1 ) __________ Despite the fact that the general opinion of the public is that they have
less leisure tim e than in the past the reality is the opposite. Nowadays more of us
(2 ) _________ sport regularly and the younger generation (3 )___________tra d ition a l
leisure pursuits such as crafts and outdoor activities.