Help the lost hiker finish his sarcastic journal entry about his friend's navigation skills. Drag the correct words to complete the sentences.
By the time the storm hit, I realized it was no use looking for the trail on a map that Bob was holding upside down. I also told him that there was no point in arguing about whose fault it was.
By the time the storm hit, I realized it was no use looking for the trail on a map that Bob was holding upside down.
Since the story is in the past tense ("the storm hit", "I realized"), we need the past tense "was". The expression "it was no use" requires a gerund ("looking").
I also told him that there was no point in arguing about whose fault it was.
The expression "there's no point" is followed by the preposition "in" and a gerund ("arguing").
Gerund
A gerund is the -ing form of a verb used as a noun — swimming, reading, being late. It can sit in any position a noun can: as the subject (Swimming is fun), as the object of a verb (I enjoy swimming), or as the complement of a preposition (She's good at swimming).
Gerunds matter because dozens of common English verbs and almost every preposition force you into the -ing form. Pick the wrong shape — I enjoy to swim, good at to swim — and the sentence sounds clearly off to a native speaker. Knowing which contexts demand a gerund (vs. an infinitive) is what makes verb patterns click.
Past tense
The past tense is how English talks about events finished before now. It comes in four flavours: simple past (I walked) for completed events, past progressive (I was walking) for actions ongoing at a past time, past perfect (I had walked) for events before another past event, and past perfect progressive (I had been walking) for ongoing events leading up to a past point.
Choosing the right one is what makes past narratives clear instead of murky. When I arrived, she ate dinner is technically grammatical but means something different than had eaten (already done) or was eating (in progress when you arrived).
Preposition
A preposition is a small word that links a noun or noun phrase to other parts of the sentence — usually marking time, place, or relationship: in, on, at, to, from, with, over, under, between, during. The book on the table, We met at noon, She lives in Berlin.
Prepositions are deceptively small. Their meaning shifts dramatically by collocation (depend on, good at, afraid of), and their choice rarely translates directly between languages. Picking the right preposition is one of the trickiest, most idiomatic-sounding parts of English.
Verb tense
Verb tense is the verb form that signals when the action happens. English has three time references — past, present, and future — combined with three aspects (simple, progressive, perfect, plus perfect progressive) to give twelve standard tense forms in total.
Each tense form carries specific meaning beyond just "when". I worked (simple past) and I have worked (present perfect) both refer to past action, but only the second connects that action to the present. Picking the right tense is what makes English narratives clear; the wrong one makes meaning subtly drift.
Idiom
An idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning isn't predictable from the words it contains. Kick the bucket doesn't mean physically kicking a bucket — it means to die. Spill the beans means to reveal a secret. It's raining cats and dogs means it's pouring rain. The cultural meaning has fully replaced the literal one.
English is dense with idioms, and recognising them is the difference between feeling lost in a casual conversation and following along easily. They can't usually be translated word-for-word into other languages — they have to be learned as whole units, like vocabulary.
B2 | Upper Intermediate
B2 is the upper-intermediate level in the CEFR framework, sitting between B1 and C1. At B2 you can read editorials, follow most TED talks without subtitles, and hold extended conversations on abstract topics — including topics outside your everyday life.
Grammatically, B2 means flexible control of mixed conditionals, passive voice across tenses, reported speech with proper backshifting, and participle clauses. B2 is the standard target for university entrance exams (IELTS 5.5–6.5, TOEFL 87–109) and most skilled-migration thresholds — knowing whether you're there shapes your study plan.
Difficulty: Hard
The Hard difficulty tag marks questions and challenges aimed at upper-intermediate to advanced learners — typically B2 and above. Expect interacting rules, edge cases, distractors that look right at first glance, and contexts where the surface meaning and the grammatical answer don't match.
Filter by Hard when you're past the basics and want material that genuinely tests your understanding. These questions catch the gaps your textbook didn't — register-sensitive choices, exception cases, mixed conditionals, the difference between would have been and had been.