Grammar Practice - Herbert Puchta, Jeff Stranks, Peter Lewis-Jones 2012

Introduction

Dear student,

As you know, all serious sportspeople train regularly. Regular training means better performances in all sports from swimming to running, and football to table tennis. And soon what seems like hard work miraculously becomes more and more fun!

And grammar is no different. If you train regularly you make fewer mistakes, get better results and have much more fun. The exercises in both this book and the CD-ROM have been created so that they guarantee excellent results when done consistently. Ideally you should be practising your grammar in short frequent sessions rather than last-minute intensive bouts of study before an exam or class test. How about practising for ten minutes every day? Try it out and you’ll soon see positive results!

You’ll get the following support in both the book and the CD-ROM:

• the Contents list allows you to easily find the topics you want to practice

• each chapter starts with a summary of the most important topics and rules

• next to the summary there is a message from Professor Grammar, your mascot throughout the book. When you see the symbol, you can go to the CD-ROM.

• in the How it works section on the CD-ROM, Professor Grammar will explain specific grammar structures. Then go to the Check it out section to double-check you have understood everything.

• at this point you can decide whether you prefer to 'train¹ using the CD-ROM or the book. In the CD-ROM there are two or three exercises per chapter. Once you’ve done each exercise you can check your results by listening to the answer (LISTEN). But remember: listening to it first will not help you!

• in the book there are one or more pages of exercises per chapter. The exercises are ordered progressively according to difficulty, from the easiest to the most challenging.

• in the Appendix there is a list of all the grammar points, with tables and rules. Plus the answer keys.

• last but not least, each chapter in the CD-ROM has a cartoon with a fun quiz. Yes, Professor Grammar has some tricks up his sleeve to make sure you have fun while you are learning!

And now, what are you waiting for ... let’s get started!

All the best from the team of authors,

Herbert Puchta

Jeff Stranks

Peter Lewis-Jones