Phrasal verbs — register — The Words We Upgrade
Grammar: Phrasal verbs — informal vs academic register
Free ESL grammar exercise on phrasal verbs — register themed around the words we upgrade. Printable worksheet from classplan.ai.
What's on this worksheet
A Level 5 (advanced) ESL grammar exercise on education, practising phrasal verbs — informal vs academic register. The worksheet has a short reading excerpt, a grammar reference and graded practice items.
From the reading
What often goes unnoticed is that academic English has its own phrasal verbs — constructions that look informal but carry significant formal weight. To account for a discrepancy, to draw on prior research, to give rise to a new hypothesis: these are the tools of the essay and the report, not the coffee shop.
Grammar: Phrasal Verbs
- Informal phrasal verbs
- We need to find out the cause. — natural in speech; too informal for academic writing
- Academic phrasal verbs
- The results point to a deeper structural problem. — formal; do not replace with a single verb
Sample items
- The new regulation will ______...... significant changes in reporting procedures.
- The audit failed to ______...... the missing funds from the second quarter.
- Her thesis ______...... ten years of ethnographic research in West Africa.
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