The British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London, England, is a public

institution dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection of
some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence,
having been widely collected during the era of the British Empire. It documents the
story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. It was the first public
national museum in the world.
The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the
Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. It first opened to the public in 1759,
in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Its expansion over the
following 250 years was largely a result of expanding British colonisation and has
resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the Natural
History Museum in 1881.
In 1973, the British Library Act 1972 detached the library department from the British
Museum, but it continued to host the now separated British Library in the
same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The museum is a non-
departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media
and Sport, and as with all national museums in the UK it charges no admission fee,
except for loan exhibitions.
Its ownership of some of its most famous objects originating in other countries is
disputed and remains the subject of international controversy, most notably in the case
of the Elgin Marbles of Greece and the Rosetta Stone of Egypt.

Exercise
1. Wouldn’t have met
2. Will be
3. Doesn’t hurry
4. Had
5. Made
6. Improves
7. Had not trained
8. Would be
9. Didn’t pass
10. Would have spoken
11. Would become
12. Listens
13. Didn’t play
14. Wouldn’t get
15. Had
16. Didn’t be
17. Spoke
18. Gets
19. Were
20. Didn’t send
21. Had talked
22. Would have understood
23. Would not
24. Added
25. Had not broken
26. Were
27. Cut
28. Would abolish
29. Had studied
30. Were
31. Had come
32. Takes
33. Will stick
34. Will not buy
35. Cooked
36. Help
37. Visited
38. Wants
39. Wouldn’t have gone
40. Phones
41. Will lose
42. Wouldn’t have stoped
43. Arrived
44. Had known