Study sheet: News English and Grammar

📋 Course Outline

1. News Vocabulary and Expressions
2. Numbers Hyphenation and Time
3. Active and Passive Voice
4. Four International Headlines
5. September 11 Attacks
6. Summer Events and Political Figures

📖 1. News Vocabulary and Expressions

★ Must-know

• GAMAY is an acronym for Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft.

• “A night owl” describes someone who goes to bed late, whereas “an early bird” describes someone who gets up early.

• “To borrow” means to receive something temporarily, whereas “to lend” means to give something temporarily to another person.

• “Some information” treats information as uncountable, whereas “a piece of information” identifies one unit of information.

Further detail

• “On the dot” refers to an exact time shown by the hands of a clock or watch.

• “Better safe than sorry” means that taking precautions is preferable to regretting an avoidable problem.

📖 2. Numbers Hyphenation and Time

★ Must-know

📌 In “a 2-year exam,” the numeral, indefinite article, and hyphenated adjective form an invariable compound modifier before a noun.

📌 In “a 2-hour English lesson,” the hyphenated compound adjective remains singular, whereas “English for 2 hours” expresses a plural duration.

Further detail

📌 American English uses “period” for the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence, whereas British English uses “full stop.”

💡 Memory Hook

A 2-hour lesson has a singular hyphenated modifier, whereas 2 hours describes duration.

📖 3. Active and Passive Voice

★ Must-know

📌 The active voice foregrounds the subject performing the action, whereas the passive voice foregrounds the result or the receiver of the action.

📌 The passive voice is formed with the auxiliary “be” in the required tense and form, followed by the past participle.

Further detail

• In “Last week, we watched a news report from the BBC,” the subject “we” performs the action in the active voice.

💡 Memory Hook

Active voice highlights the agent, whereas passive voice highlights the result.

📖 4. Four International Headlines

★ Must-know

• The four headlines concern:

  • retaliatory attacks on US bases in Bahrain
  • President Zelensky’s warning about Russian airspace
  • rising inflation and borrowing costs linked to AI-related technology expenses
  • a trial stalled by the jury’s failure to reach a unanimous verdict

• The first headline describes retaliatory attacks targeting US bases in Bahrain after a strike on a wedding in the Middle East killed five Iranians.

• The second headline states that Ukrainian President Zelensky warned international airlines against flying through Russian airspace.

📌 A jury is at a deadlock or stalemate when it fails to reach a unanimous verdict and deliberations remain ongoing.

Further detail

• The third headline links rising inflation, borrowing costs, and AI-related technology expenses to pressure on global economies.

💡 Memory Hook

Retaliation, airspace, inflation, deadlock.

📖 5. September 11 Attacks

📝 Essential Points

• On September 11, 2001, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks carried out by the extremist group al-Qaida took place in the United States.

• The September 11 attacks took place at the World Trade Center in New York City and involved the infiltration and selection of flights for takeover in planes.

• The president of the United States at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks was George W. Walker Bush.

💡 Memory Hook

Infiltration and flight selection enabled al-Qaida’s coordinated attacks in the United States.

📖 6. Summer Events and Political Figures

★ Must-know

• The Commonwealth Games are an international sporting event held in Scotland in the summer review, with 3,000 athletes participating in 40 different sports.

• The Lollapalooza international music festival took place in Chicago and involved more than 170 artists.

• The UK prime ministers listed are:

  • David Cameron from 2010 to 2016
  • Theresa May from 2016 to 2019
  • Boris Johnson from 2019 to 2022
  • Liz Truss in 2022
  • Rishi Sunak from 2022 to 2024
  • Keir Starmer from 2024 to 2026

• A decade means ten years, whereas the French word “décade” means twenty years.

Further detail

• Wildfires means fires that burn in natural areas, and “Does it ring a bell?” is an idiom meaning “Does it remind you of something?”

💡 Memory Hook

Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer.

📊 Synthesis Tables

English Expressions and Meanings

Expression	Meaning	Contrast
night owl	person who goes to bed late	early bird gets up early
on the dot	exactly at a specified time	approximate time
borrow	receive temporarily	lend means give temporarily
deadlock	failure to reach agreement	unanimous verdict means all agree