General English Level 6 Version 2.1 © 2004 acl Pty Ltd GELEV6 Unit 02 Topic 02.doc 7. How did they renovate Customs House?  a) They painted the outside of the building.  b) They renovated the inside but kept the outside as it was.  c) They preserved it exactly as it was, inside and out. 8. Who thinks that demolishing the building and building a new one would be expensive?  a) Rani  b) Bert  c) Alex 9. What is Rani going to do about the situation?  a) write to the mayor of her city  b) write to the editor of the newspaper  c) write to the boss of her company 10. Who thinks writing to the editor is a useless idea?  a) Rani  b) Bert  c) Alex  LANGUAGE FOCUS 03 Gerunds In this activity you will learn about the different reasons for using gerunds. Bert, Alex and Rani say: Rani: … demolishing the building doesn't make any sense at all! … Alex: Moving to another city doesn't really worry me. In fact I'm looking forward to living in the big smoke … Bert: Well, as much as I enjoy living in this city, I'd like to stay with this company, so I'll move if I have to. I'm not sure I agree with demolishing this building, though. It seems such a shame to knock down a building like this. I do think preserving old buildings is important. Rani: Absolutely! Don't you think renovating the building would be a better option than knocking it down? Alex: Wouldn't that be an expensive option? Rani: Well, spending all that money to demolish an existing building and then constructing a new one can't be cheap, either. Rani: I do, and I'm thinking of writing a letter to the editor. The words in bold above are called gerunds. Gerunds are verbs that have been changed into nouns by adding ing. In the following example, the gerund has exactly the same meaning as the verb, but functions as a noun in the sentence. Example It doesn’t make any sense to demolish the building. Demolishing the building doesn’t make any sense. 46