Crime and tense review

New Cutting Edge Intermediate Modules 9 and 10

1. What is the missing word in each of the sentences below? In which tenses?

• If your boss asked you to _______ him cups of tea all the time

• If your job ________ you angry almost every day

• If everything suggestion your doctor ______ just _______ it worse

• If your partner ______ you a disgusting dinner

• If your bank _________ a mistake that they added money that wasn’t yours to your account

• If a client _____________ you a cup of coffee but you were allergic to it

• If you bought a pair of shoes and only realised when you got home that they were __________ of plastic

2. What would you do in each of the circumstances above?

3. Would you keep the money? Under what other circumstances would you commit fraud? (“I would commit fraud if…”)

4. Discuss the same thing for the situations on page 97 (Student’s book)

5. Discuss number 7 (stealing) as a class. Choose one of the crimes below and explain why you would do it. Can you partner guess which one it is?

 Shoplift

 Pickpocket

 Mug someone

 Smuggle drugs (= drug trafficking)

 Deal drugs

 Forge someone’s signature

 Snatch someone’s bag

 Accept bribes

 Break into a house or shop

 Set fire to a house (= arson)

 Blackmail someone

6. Identify the crimes on page 104. How do you think the stories continue?

7. Fill the sentences below with the tenses that were used in the texts you read (there are several different past tenses):

Guildford Crown Court yesterday ____________ (hear) how mugger Toby Williams… _____________ (snatch) the handbag of Barbara Walsh…

But what they ____________ (not realise) was that the police __________ (watch) them for weeks.

… the diamonds ____________ (replace) with replicas: the real ones ____________ (be) safe in the bank.

… the baggage handlers who ________________ (unload) the plane ____________ (drop) Dempsey’s crate and he fell out.

8. Test each other on the order of what happened in the story, using the Past Perfect and Past Continuous, e.g.

(Story 1- Start with the time when they dropped the crate)


“He was arrested years after they dropped the crate”

“Take the money”

“He had taken the money before the crate was dropped”


(Story 2- Start when he presented the cheque to the bank clerk)

(Story 3- Start when they smashed holes in the security glass protecting the diamonds)


PDF version for easy printing: Crime tense review

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