Life-changing experiences
Grammar: Inversion
Never in my life would I have imagined feeling that way.
Little did I know how wrong I was.
Rarely do I go to events with lots of people. We use inversion to add emphasis, a dramatic purpose, or a degree of formality to a sentence. To invert a sentence, we need to move the adverb or adverbial phrase to the beginning of the sentence and invert the subject and auxiliary verb.
Grammar reference p. 128
1 Pairwork Discuss the questions with a partner.
1 What are life-changing experiences?
2 What are some examples of life-changing experiences?
3 Do you think that gaming and technology are making young people miss out on lifechanging experiences?
2 39 You will hear four teenagers describing an event that changed their lives. What do they all have in common?
A None of them regret the decisions leading to the change.
B They have all accomplished what they wished for.
C They were all in a better condition before the experience.
3 39 CERT Listen again and choose from the list (A–E) what relates to each speaker’s experience. Use the letters only once. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.
Which speaker . . .
A wanted to become closer to a family member?
B was motivated to change their life by a family member’s situation?
C changed their mind about someone they knew well?
D had an experience that will shape their future career?
E was trying to distract themselves?
Speaker 1 Speaker 3
Speaker 2 Speaker 4
4 Rewrite the sentences beginning with the words in bold.
1 I had never had such a pleasant experience.
2 We rarely go to electronic music festivals.
3 Martha changed her mind at no time.
4 I knew little about the actual story.
5 We do not visit them often
6 Sarah’s trip is by no means guaranteed.
5 Critical Thinking Discuss how you can complete the advice below.
● When it comes to making decisions that can affect your life, by no means…
● When it comes to life experiences, never should you…