taking time with an exam

Placez le pointeur de la souris sur les mots soulignés, sans cliquer.

A class of students is taking a difficult exampasse un examen difficile. The teacher says, “Time’s upLe temps est écoulé. I want you to stop writing and hand in your tests.”

All the students stop — except one guygars ↔ type. He keeps on writingcontinue d’écrire. The teacher warns himle met en garde, “Stop now, or I won’t accept your paper!” But the student carries on writing for another ten minutes.

Finally he stands up and walks to the teacher.
The teacher says, “No. You finished late. I will not take your test.”

The student looks at him and asks, “Do you know who I am?Savez-vous qui je suis ?”
The teacher replies, “No, I don’t.”
The student smilessourit, walks over to the huge pile of testspile d’examens, slips his own paper right in the middleau milieu, mixesmélange them all up, turns to the teacher and says, “Good!” before leaving the roomquitter la salle.

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Vocabulary

guy — bloke, lad, chap, fellow

time's up — the allowed time has finished

pile of tests — large stack of exam papers

mixes (them) up — shuffles, jumbles, stirs together

Grammar

• Present continuous for actions happening at the moment of the story: “is taking”, “keeps on writing”, “is warning”.

• Direct speech punctuation (British style): full stop inside quotation marks only when it belongs to the spoken sentence.

Synonyms & Alternatives

keeps on writing → carries on writing, continues writing

warns him → tells him off, threatens him

mixes → shuffles, jumbles

Mini Dialogue

Teacher: Time's up! Pens down!

Student: Just one more minute, sir!

Teacher: No! Hand it in now or you get noughtzéro.

Student (smiling): Do you know who I am?

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