Standard Four Language Patterns: “HOW MUCH …than”

Objective: To construct questions using the sentence pattern “How much...than”. Well the London Olympics, 2012 edition is over and many of us had a good time watching athletics. The track events are of particular interest to Kenyans. Just how well do you know your track events? The track events have three broad categories: the sprints, middle distance and long distance. In the sprints we have the 100m, 200m and 400m races. How much longer is the 400m race than the 200m race? How much longer is the 400m race than the 100m race? How much longer is the 200m race than the 100m race? Of course you got the answers right. The challenge, remember, is not the math but the sentence pattern. Now let us move into the middle distance. Again we have three races here: 800m, 1500m and 3000m. Now create your own questions similar to the ones above. Remember to start with the greatest distance. You should have a total of 3 questions. I hope you had a good time making those sentences. However, is it possible to start with the shorter distance? Yes it is, but we replace the word “longer” with “shorter”. We will look at the sprints first. How much shorter is the 100m race than the 200m race? How much shorter is the 100m race than the 400m race? How much shorter is the 200m race than the 400m race? Great! It is time for you to make your own sentences. We travel back to the middle distance. Remember to start with the shortest distance. I believe you had no trouble making those sentences. Do your sentences look like these? How much shorter is the 800m race than the 1500m race? How much shorter is the 800m race than the 3000m race? How much shorter is the 1500m race than the 3000m race? Congratulations if they do. If they do not find out where you are going wrong and make the corrections before you proceed to the next exercise. Now we have a long journey to make. We will travel the long distance. The long distance also has three events: 5000m, 10000m, and the marathon which is a whooping 42kilometers. Most of us have trouble walking a kilometer. These athletes must be very strong to run this race. I believe every one of them who finishes the race ought to be given a medal for completion. Anyway, back to our sentence patterns. You have learned that you should compare things that are similar. So we need to convert the meters to kilometers. 5000m is 5km and 10000m is 10 km. Now we have similar units it is easy for you to construct your sentences and complete our Olympic challenge. This time I will ask you to run the marathon. First make three sentences using “longer”, then make three more using “shorter”. I hope you earned your gold medal for that marathon race and this exercise as a whole. Congratulations!