Sport on TV – answers to the exercise on synonyms

1 pouring wet – rain-soaked
2 unable to stop watching TV – glued to the television
3 being thrilled by and admiring – marvelling at
4 brave and bold actions/achievements – heroics
5 especially – in particular
6 although he had never expressed – having shown
7 former – previous
8 spent quite a lot of money on – invested a tidy sum in
9 is out of sight – is not to be seen
10 getting ready – preparing
11 fellow-cyclists – colleagues
12 giving us such …. – providing us with such
13 in response – in return
14 someone who has only recently become interested in .. (eg a competition or examination) – a new entrant to ..
15 to stop spending so many hours on his computer – to loosen his grip on his PC
16 ongoing – continued
17 lacking imagination or foresight – short-sighted

No 15 is the ironic one – it is a humorous way of saying the boy never used to leave his computer.

Feedback:

1 pouring wet = rain-soaked
to soak = make/become thoroughly wet
Another version of this phrase would be soaking wet, which could also be used of a person or object.
2 Did you keep the ‘e‘ in ‘glued‘? (Did you lose the ‘e‘ on the verbs ‘prepare‘ and ‘provide‘ – preparing (10) / (12) providing?)
3 Did you get the two ‘l‘s in marvelling at?
4 Heroics – did you guess this word, pronounced very differently from ‘hero‘ (which rhymes with ‘hear – oh’)
6 having shown…. he ….
Note that the same person must be the subject of both verbs when this structure is used:
Eg Having parked the car, I walked up their garden path – (I did both actions). Otherwise we must spell out – i.e. make it very clear – who did what.
Eg When HE had parked the car SHE walked up their garden path.
11 Many people misspell ‘colleagues‘ – how did you get on?

Additional language notes
heroic – adjective – 1) very brave or great: eg a heroic rescue at sea 2) INFORMAL If you make a heroic attempt or effort to do something, you try very hard to do it:
eg Despite his heroic efforts to cheer everyone up, the general mood in the office didn’t improve.
heroics – plural noun – brave and bold actions / behaviour
a tidy sum – a considerable sum of money

We have other phrases similar to ‘out of sight‘ – for example: out of reach, out of touch, out of earshot. We also have the saying ‘out of sight, out of mind‘ – i.e. if the person cannot actually see you (s)he forgets about you completely.
an entrant – a person who become a member of a group or organisation / who takes part in a competition or examination.
Eg Late entrants may have to wait until the next auditions are held.

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