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Home practice · relative clauses · word building · answer key included
1 · Relative clauses
Choose the correct relative pronoun: 'That's the coach ______ trained her.'
Which non-defining sentence is correct?
Complete: 'It's a stadium ______ capacity is 60,000.'
Which is a correct reduced relative clause?
Complete: 'The town ______ I did my first race is tiny.'
In defining relative clauses we can OMIT the pronoun when it is the:
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2 · Complete with a word from the box (word building)
- Her drop over three winters is the whole story.
- It's an drop target with the right plan.
- She is more drop than talented.
- At this level, what wins is drop , not brilliance.
- Nobody stays this focused without real drop .
- The school has a genuine culture of drop .
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3 · Combine, reduce or rewrite
Combine: 'She has a coach. He was once a marathon runner.'
Combine with 'whose': 'She's the swimmer. Her father coached her.'
Reduce: 'The runners who are trained by Coach Diaz have all improved.'
Combine (non-defining): 'Our captain is 34. She has just qualified for her fourth Olympics.'
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4 · Match each form to its word-class
- persistdrop or tap here…
- persistencedrop or tap here…
- persistentdrop or tap here…
- competedrop or tap here…
- competitordrop or tap here…
- competitivedrop or tap here…
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5 · Podcast · What the coach actually said
Listen to a short first-person monologue from an athletics coach reflecting on the athlete she trained the longest.
📄 Show transcript
Speaker: You know, I’ve worked with hundreds of young athletes over the years, but the one who really stands out, the athlete whose paperwork I filled in for eight winters, is the one who ultimately made it. Everyone always asks what her special gift was – was it blistering speed? Raw power? And honestly, it wasn’t. Her real gift was an unusual, almost superhuman willingness to tolerate the boring, uncomfortable practice. Day in, day out, she just *did* it.
I remember when she was seventeen, after a particularly disappointing season, she made a monumental decision: to completely rebuild her running action from scratch, knowing it meant losing an entire season on purpose. Most kids would never have the patience. So, if a promising fifteen-year-old came to me today, looking for advice, I'd probably tell them this: "Find one boring thing to do every single day for four years, and for goodness sake, stop asking whether it's working." That's the secret.
- Which relative clause does the coach use about her most successful athlete?
- What does she say the real gift was?
- What decision at 17 does she cite as the turning point?
- What is her honest advice to a promising fifteen-year-old?
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6 · A short reflection (180–220 words)
Write a short first-person reflection titled: "The skill I built the boring way." Use at least four defining relative clauses, two non-defining relative clauses and three word-family transformations. Do not use the word talent.
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