1) In pairs, discuss the questions.
1 What is fake news?
Fake news is news that is not true or from unreliable sources.
2 What fake news stories have you heard of?
Students’ own answers.
3 When do you think fake news started?
It started hundreds of years ago.
2) Check you understand the words from the podcast in the box. Find two synonyms for each word 1–8 below.
1 decrease (v)
2 fake (n)
3 reliable
4 mystery
5 signs
6 state (v)
7 strange
8 uncover
Answers :
1 drop, go down 2 fraud, hoax 3 dependable, trustworthy 4 enigma, puzzle 5 clues, hints 6 claim, maintain 7 bizarre, weird 8 expose, reveal
3) THINK BACK
Narrative tenses; Past Perfect Simple and Continuous
Which past tense is used in each of the underlined parts?
A few years later, in 1835, a newspaper in New York 1published a series of amazing stories about the findings of the famous British astronomer, John Herschel. The newspaper said that while he 2was studying the moon, he 3found lots of strange animals living there. They later admitted that the reports were not true, but by that time, sales of the newspaper 4had increased dramatically.
Answers :
1 Past Simple, it happened once in the past
2 Past Continuous, an action that continued for a time in the past
3 Past Simple, it happened once in the past
4 Past Perfect, the earlier of two events in the past (they later admitted it was not true is the other event)
4) Complete the rules by writing Past Perfect Simple, Past Perfect Continuous or both.
1 We use …both...to make clear that a past action happened earlier than another past action.
2 We use …the Past Perfect Simple…to talk about an earlier completed action.
3 We use …the Past Perfect Continuous...to talk about a situation or action which continued up to a certain time in the past.
5) Study Watch Out! Then complete the text with the correct past tense forms of the verbs in brackets.
WATCH OUT! • We use the Past Perfect Continuous when we want to focus on the length of an activity or when we explain a past result, e.g.
He was tired as he had been flying for hours.
• We do not use the Past Perfect Continuous with repeated actions when we say how frequently something happened, e.g. She had been visiting him regularly
ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVER ANCIENT WALLS
Before the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project (EBAP) visited the Black Desert of Jordan, nobody 1…had explored….. (explore) the archaeology of this large area. When the archaeologists started work, stones from ancient houses 2…had been lying… (lie) under the ground for more than 8,000 years. The people who built these houses also 3…had built…. (build) amazing long walls called ‘kites’ to catch animals with. The walls were many kilometres long and they met at a point. Animals that 4…had been running… (run) away from the people could not escape from this point in the walls. Archaeologists think that the walls at Jibal al-Khashabiyeh might be the oldest in the world: nobody 5…had made… (made) anything like this before. The kites show that the people who lived in the Black Desert 6 ...had been working... (work) together in large teams to find food much earlier than they expected