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Modals of Obligation Grammar Guides Reading Comprehension Exercises 19693
Modals of Obligation Grammar Guides Reading Comprehension Exercises 19693
John is a librarian in an image library. It’s his responsibility to maintain and organize all the
transparencies which the library hires out. He has to make sure they are all filed correctly
and are in perfect condition. When the transparencies come back from a client they have to
be checked closely for any damage and sometimes they need to be cleaned. He should also
make regular checks of the library files to see that the slides haven’t been put in the wrong
category but he doesn’t do this as much as he should because it’s a very painstaking and
tedious job that he would rather avoid.
John is of course grateful that he has a nine to five job where he doesn’t have to work at
weekends or do night-shifts but he thinks there are still plenty of things he can complain
about! For example he often has to work late but his boss won’t pay him overtime because
she says he has adequate time in the day to finish off his tasks if he works efficiently. But
because invariably the researchers don’t finish using the library until the end of the day and
his boss says the library must always be left perfectly tidy before it is closed for the night, he
usually has to stay late tidying up! Sometimes if he’s very tired he will put a great pile of
slides that should be sorted out into the pile for checking for damage so he can leave them for
the next day. Of course he knows he shouldn’t do this but he does it anyway !
John has a great passion for photography and so he likes working in the library because he
gets to see hundreds of great professional images but sometimes he finds it frustrating. For
instance, it is often deemed that slides are getting out of date and should be got rid of and so
J has to take them out of the library. Often these are very beautiful images and J would like
to be able to keep them for himself , but of course because of copyright issues he’s not
allowed to. He can take the catalogue home if he wants but that’s not quite the same!
One day John would like to leave this rather boring job and get paid to be a professional
photographer, but on the other hand , then he would have to take the risk of having no work
while he built up experience and contacts and also he would very likely have to work
around the clock if he wanted to be successful. He often tells himself he musn’t let himself
get stuck in a rut and force himself to move on – but it’s too easy to stay in his stress-less
relatively responsibility free job. Maybe he shouldn’t have started in the library at all !
7. In fact this job is now obsolete so can you put the whole text into the past ?!!
What is the most boring job you’ve ever done and why was it boring?
What is the most challenging job you’ve ever done and why was it difficult?
What rules are there at your work which you think are a bit silly or even really
stupid ?
What career mistakes – if any – do you think you have made in your life so far ?