Handout LA 8a

Read the following short story and underline the errors. Write the correct answers
in brackets after you have underlined the errors. The first one has been done for
you. There are 25 more errors to be identified.

John 1. had always travel (has always travelled) a lot. In fact, he 2. were (was)

only two years old when he first 3. fly (flew) to the US. His mother is 4. an Italian and

his father is 5. an American. John was 6. bore (born) in France, but his parents had

7.meet (met) in Cologne, Germany 8.and they 9.have been (had been) living there for

five years. They 10.have meet (had met) one day while John's father was reading a

book in the library and his mother 11. sit (sat) down beside him.

John is travelling a lot because his parents also 12.travel (travelled) a lot. As a

matter of fact, John 13.visits (is visiting) his parents in France at the moment. He

14.live (lives) in New York now, but 15.has visits (had been visiting) his parents for

the past few weeks. He really enjoys living in New York, but he also 16.love (loves)

coming to visit his parents at least once a year.

This year he has flew 17.(had flown) over 50,000 miles for his job. He has been

working for Jackson & Co. for almost two years now. He is pretty sure that he will

18.worked (will be working) for them next year as well. His job 19.require (requires) a

lot of 20.travel (travelling). In fact, by the end of this year, he 21.will travelling (will

have travelled) over 120,000 miles! His next journey 22.would (will be) to Australia. He

really 23.do not (does not) like going to Australia because it is so far. This time he

24.goes (is going) to fly from Paris after a meeting with the company's French partner.

He 25.will sit (will have sat) for over 18 hours by the time he arrives!

John 26.was (had) talked 27. to his parents earlier this evening when his
girlfriend from New York 28. telephones (telephoned) to let him know that Jackson &

Co. had decided to merge with a company in Australia. The two companies 29.have

negotiate (had been negotiating) for the past month, so it really wasn’t much of a

surprise. Of course, this means that John 30.is (has) to catch the next plane back to

New York. He 31.meets (will be meeting) with his boss at this time tomorrow.