General English Level 5 GELEV5 Unit 02 Topic 01.doc  PRACTICE 06 Collective nouns The brochure says: Look up, and you might catch a glimpse of flocks of birds high above you … Look carefully and you will see the schools of wild fish that live there. When we talk about a group of people, animals or things we often use a special name for the group. We call these special names collective nouns. We usually use a singular verb after a collective noun, because we think of all the members of the group as one group, not as separate parts of the group. The flock of birds is high up in the top of the trees. (a flock of birds = many birds together in one group) The school of fish swims in the river. (a school of fish = many fish together in one group) Match the collective nouns on the left with the words on the right. 1. gaggle A. fish 2. set B. birds 3. herd C. cows 4. class D. ants 5. brood E. students 6. pod F. whales 7. army G. geese 8. school H. football players 9. team I. chickens 10. flock K books 52 QUESTLANGUAGE