Interpretation and language exercises – A. W. S. Dubber – Gibson – 1952 – Blanda

**Interpretation and language exercises**: Book 4.

This handbook has been compiled in the modest hope that it will provide adequate practice in Interpretation and Language Exercises for fourth and fifth year pupils in Grammar and Senior Secondary Schools. Such exercises form an integral part of any secondary course in English.

Twenty exercises have been adjudged ample for a session's work by the pupils of either year, on the basis of two monthly during a session not quite ten months in duration. They have been carefully graded although the compiler realises that, even so, different teachers will entertain different opinions concerning what ought to constitute the correct order of priority. Most of the exercises, it may be added, have already been tried out, and the divergence between top and bottom marks found to be eminently satisfactory.

Selections have been chosen not only from prose writers of repute, but also from The Sunday Times as a typical newspaper read by educated individuals. It is firmly believed that any loss in academic appeal occasioned thereby shall be more than offset by the gain in practical value. At all times an endeavour has been made to select extracts which have an intrinsic, as well as a practical, value.

In the formulation of language exercises the compiler has had recourse to certain standard dictionaries and reference books. "The Concise Oxford Dictionary" has been used throughout and, as a final court of appeal, the two-volume "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary". H. W. Fowlers "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage", Sir Paul Harvey's "The Oxford Companion to English Literature" and H. A. Treble's "A Classical and Biblical Reference Book" have also proved invaluable.

The thanks of the compiler are due to two of his colleagues-to Mr. I. R. Ash, M. A., Lanark Grammar Schools, for permission to include Extract 38 among the fifth year interpretation exercises, and to Mr. G. R. Stirrat, M. A., Wishaw High School, for helpful advice and forreading part of the manuscript.

A. W. S. D.