What Would You Have Done?

Read the situations on the left first. Write in what you would have done in the same situation. Then go around the class and see if anyone else would have reacted in the same way as you.

	My reaction:	Same as me:
My neighbours were playing loud music at 4am last night.
I was overcharged at the supermarket.
Last weekend, the waiter brought me cold soup.
Someone knocked on my door last week asking for money so they could eat.
On the bus recently, someone trod on my foot and said nothing.
I found a purse on the beach with $200 in – and an address.
I forgot my best friend’s birthday last month.
Our teacher told me I was the worst student in the class!

Third conditional and past modals advice

New Cutting Edge Intermediate Modules 11 and 12

What should the people have done in these situations? What would have happened if the people had taken those different actions? What should they do now?

“I started smoking just in the evenings when I went out drinking with my friends, who all smoke, but now I think I am addicted and smoke 20 a day”

“I left the country because I didn’t believe in doing military service, but that now means I can’t visit my family without being arrested”

“I have 30,000 dollars of student loans to pay back, but with the bad economy I can’t get a well-paid job”

“I was hungry and had no money to buy food, so I stole a sandwich from the corner shop. I thought I had escaped but the shopkeeper had seen me and I have been arrested for shoplifting”

“My parents refused their permission for me to get married when I was 17, so we went across the border to Scotland and got hitched. Now my family won’t speak to me”

“My crazy ex-boyfriend was following me around and making threats, so I started carrying a gun to protect myself. Unfortunately, the police stopped me for speeding and found the gun”

“I brought home a fish I had caught and gutted it in the kitchen when my son was there, but he was so disgusted that now he refuses to eat fish or meat”

“Before my mother went into hospital she had signed a statement saying that if she lost consciousness she wanted us to switch off the life support machine, but now I think she might have already had Alzheimer’s when she signed that document”

“I worked 50 hour weeks to finish a big project on time because I thought I would be able to take it easy for a while because there wasn’t much to do after the project finished, but now my boss and colleagues are making pointed comments about me taking long lunch breaks etc”