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LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT

Questions

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I'm Dan. I just moved from Barrow, Alaska, to Los Angeles, California for college. I'm a small-town boy writing about big-city life for students like me!

L.A. Update!

I've been in my new city for two weeks now. Living in Los Angeles has been a really big change. Here are some things I never had to worry about in Alaska:

  • Pollution: There's so much traffic, and it makes the air so dirty. Plus, there's smoke in the air from factories. And since I arrived, there's been almost no wind, so the air is never really clean.
  • Concrete: Sometimes I see a few trees and a little grass here and there, but almost all of the land between buildings is concrete. Sometimes there is graffiti on the buildings, too, which I don't like.
  • Noise: I expected a lot of noise during the day, but I'm really surprised how much noise there is at night. In Alaska, there's almost none. Here, I wake up several times a night.
  • Crowds: L.A. is a megacity (more than 10 million people). Because it's so crowded, there's very little space. But I love living close to so many people. There's stuff happening all the time.
  • Heat: It's a lot hotter here than in Alaska. I actually like that – but I need to buy some cooler clothes!
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VOCABULARY: Urban problems

A

Use all the words to complete the following paragraphs by dragging and dropping them into the correct spaces.

air
concrete
graffiti
land
noise
pollution
smoke
space
traffic
traffic jam
trash

Cities are full of cars, so there's often 1 on the roads. This often leads to a 2, which means delays. The cars cause 3, along with the 4 from factories, and dirty 5 is bad for our health. You can also hear the 6 of the traffic all over the city.

Cities can be ugly, too. Most of the 7 has high-rise buildings and 8 sidewalks on it. And when people share the same 9, they produce tons of garbage. Some people leave their 10 on the street. There's 11 on some buildings, and even if it looks nice, business owners usually don't like it.

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GRAMMAR: Quantifiers

A

Circle the correct answers. Use the sentences in the grammar box to help you.

  1. With quantifiers like a few, several, and so many, use / .
  2. With quantifiers like a little, very little, and so much, use / .
  3. Some quantifiers, like / , can be used with both count and non-count nouns.
B

Circle the correct answers. Sometimes both are possible. Then check your answers with a partner.