If you are going to do something “come hell or high water”, you are absolutely determined to do it no matter what difficulties or obstacles you face. Another way to express the same thing is, “come rain or shine”.
1. Do you stick to your New Year’s Resolutions or lifestyle changes come hell or high water, or do you sometimes give up easily?
2. What will you sacrifice sleep for so that you can finish something come rain or shine? For me I will stay up late to finish a season of my favorite TV series.
3. Do you pay all of your bills on time come hell or high water, or is it normally not that urgent?
4. If someone says, “I will ___ if it’s the last thing I do!”, it means that neither rain nor shine, hell nor high water will stop them from accomplishing their goal.
5. Most kinds of deadlines need to be met come rain or shine. What deadlines do you currently have?
If you do something at the last minute, you are doing it just before the deadline or before the time it needs to be ready. You leave something until the last moment.
1. Were/ are you someone who left/ leaves studying for exams until the last minute? Of course, why study now when we still have tomorrow, right!?
2. Do women leave things until the last minute more commonly than men, or is it that they are only ready until the last minute?
3. I am not surprised when students send me compositions at the last minute just before coming to class, even though I will most likely not have the time to revise them until after the class.
4. When you need to cancel an event or outing with a friend (or even an English class), do you wait until the last minute to call them, or do you try to let them know ahead of time?
5. Do you sleep until the last possible minute, or do you wake up a little earlier and give yourself ample time to get ready for work… or a little bit of a leeway (flexibility) with the traffic?
The “acid test” is the definitive, absolute or sure test which establishes the value or worth of something. It originally comes from the use of nitric acid to test gold.
1. What is the acid test to determine who the “best” soccer player in the world is? Is it recognition by fans around the world, the number of goals scored, world cup titles under their belt or by some other means?
2. How do you know if someone is really a true friend? Is there an acid test? Is it those people who leave comments or poke you on Facebook?
3. The Cambridge CPE exam is by far the most difficult English proficiency test. If you pass it, your English is almost as good as a Native Speaker’s. In other words it is the acid test for your level of English. Out in the real world, the acid test is whether or not you can get a job where you need to speak English all day.
4. When I want to research about movies to watch, in general, the acid test for me is the rating a movie gets on imdb.com (the internet movie data base). If a movie gets at least a 7 then I consider it worth watching.
2nd conditional: generally, it is an unreal possibility or dream. We're talking hypothetically about the future. The grammar: If + past simple + would
1. Beyoncé sings: "If I were a boy, even just for a day, I'd roll out of bed in the morning, and throw on what I wanted and go..." What would you do differently if you were a member of the opposite sex?
2. If I were born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I might not/ would not be as hard-working as I am now.
3. My mother always used to tell me that money did not grow on trees. If it did, every tree would look like it does in winter… after the fall/ autumn.
4. If I were born in the Northeast of Brazil, I would probably be crazy about soccer, eat "Panelada" and listen to "Forro" music.
5. If I had more than 24 hours a day, I would take up a new hobby every week.
6. I would eat a cockroach ONLY if I were paid at least $5,000 to do so. What is your price?
7. If I had bigger biceps I would wear a tank top in public. I'm working on it!
If something is trending on twitter, it is a topic that is being talked about the most. It could be any news or story that is popular at the moment.
A trend simply reflects what seems to be going around at any given time. It could reflect fashion, pop-culture, entertainment… or even the stock market.
1. If you would like to know what's happening right now on Twitter, there are many ways to find out: one way is to visit the profile, "What's Trending" (@WhatsTrending). If you go to trendsmap.com, you can see what's trending in your area right now.
2. Absolutely anything that is trending at the moment will no doubt be passed around on Facebook. Popular things, whether they are funny videos or serious political stories go viral overnight.
3. Have you heard of "Zite"? It is an app that collects the best of all topics from around the Internet: from magazines, newspapers, authors, blogs and videos on any topic that is currently trending. It is available on the App Store (iOS), Google play and Amazon Appstore (for Android), as well as on the Windows Phone Store. It will curate your news content according to your interests.
4. What is currently trending in your area of interest, whether it be sports, technology, productivity, health, etc?
5. If you have no idea what's trending at the moment, Google it! Go to Google and type in, "What's trending right now?"... or, "Trending topics." Some of your top results will be for Yahoo! News, Pinterest, Twitter, The Huffington post, TechCrunch, etc.
If something is beyond you, it is impossible or difficult to understand or deal with. It may also express a hint of frustration/ exasperation at the same time. Also, a concept may be difficult to grasp.
1. It is beyond me how many people are not interested in being involved in their children’s' lives. They are missing out on some of life's best moments.
2. Theoretical physics is totally beyond me. I think you need to be an academic to understand Stephen Hawking’s' articles.
3. Why Brazilians have to pay so much tax - especially import tax, is beyond me. Is there any way to justify electronics in Brazil costing at least double the price they do in the US? Are import taxes high in your country?
4. I can't for the life of me understand how someone can take another person's life, simply because they want something that the other person has. It's beyond me.
5. To contemplate the infinite past is totally mind-boggling… It is absolutely beyond me. Time always existed, and there was never a beginning. There was always existence.
Generally, if an adjective has one or two syllables, we add an "-er" for the comparative and an "-est" for the superlative. If there are more than two syllables, we use more/most + adjective. Of course, there are exceptions.
1. What is the most beautiful or most interesting thing you have ever seen? Is it more beautiful or more interesting than the aurora borealis?
2. Which country do you think has a more efficient education system: China or the United States?
3. Do you know any of the following statistics/ facts?: The longest river in the world, the second biggest bank robbery in history, the smallest country in the world, the oldest man or woman alive, the richest man in the world, the country with the highest per capita income in the world, the fastest man alive, the longest running comic strip.
4. Who do you think is crazier… Jim Carrey, Dennis Rodman or Charlie Sheen?
5. The "longest day" of the year is called the Summer solstice. The shortest day of the year is called the Winter solstice.
6. In your opinion, who do you think speaks a "clearer" English… Americans or the British?
7. In you experience, which is the best and the worst web browser that exists?
If you tighten your belt, you need to find ways to economize with your budget and spend less, because things are difficult financially - or you simply have a tighter budget for one reason or another.
1. Do you have to tighten your belt towards the end of the month, just before you receive your next paycheck? Some people have the philosophy of, “Let's eat, drink and be merry" whenever possible. So there are always times of plenty and times of little.
2. Do Brazilians tighten their belts after Christmas and New Year?... Or do they tighten their belts after Carnival?
3. Can you think of any countries that have to tighten their belts? In recent years, Germany has pushed for Greece to tighten its belt, especially since they have been giving Greece financial aid in the form of a bailout package.
4. You have often heard it said, "The more you have, the more you spend." That's why even millionaires have to sometimes tighten their belts.
5. "To spend or not to spend… That is the question." How do you know when you can splash out or when you absolutely have to tighten your belt?
