Words for science, and first and second conditionals
You can talk about research and inventions with exact words, and choose the right conditional for a real or an imagined result.
Much of what people say about science concerns results that have not happened yet. English talks about them with conditionals: sentences with if.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy is a quarter of your mark in Speaking and in Writing. Conditionals used correctly are one way to show that range. We start with the words for research and inventions.
Warm-up
Found or made?
One word fits this sentence. Ask yourself whether the frog existed before anyone saw it.
Last year, scientists ______ a new species of frog in a mountain forest.
Words for science
Research
Do a study or a test. The team carried out the experiment three times to check the result.
An idea that an experiment is designed to test. Her hypothesis was that the seeds would grow faster under blue light.
Facts that show something is true. It is uncountable: some evidence, a piece of evidence. There is now strong evidence that the new material lasts longer.
Facts and numbers collected for study. Both the data show and the data shows are correct today. They collected data from 300 weather stations.
What a study finds out, usually plural. The findings were published in a science journal.
An important discovery, often after a long time of trying. The breakthrough came after years of failed tests.
Inventions and progress
You invent something new. You discover something that was already there. The microscope was invented first, and bacteria were discovered with it.
Work on a product or an idea until it is ready to use. It can take ten years or more to develop a new medicine.
The first working model of an invention, made for testing. The students built a prototype from plastic bottles.
Money given for a purpose, often by a government or a company. The project lost its funding after two years.
A practical use for an idea or a discovery. The research has applications in farming and medicine.
An extra result that nobody planned, usually an unwanted one. Every new technology has side effects.
Grammar: first and second conditionals
A conditional sentence has two halves. The if half gives a condition, and the other half gives the result. Which conditional you choose depends on how real you think the condition is.
Side by side
If + present simple, then will, can or may + verb. If the trial works, the drug will go on sale next year. Use it for things that could really happen.
If + past simple, then would, could or might + verb. If I had a lab at home, I would test our tap water. Use it for things that are unlikely, or not true now.
The same idea, two conditionals
If scientists find a cure for the common cold, millions of people will buy it. The speaker thinks a cure is a real possibility.
If scientists found a cure for the common cold, millions of people would buy it. The speaker thinks it is unlikely, or is only imagining it.
Speculating in Part 3 and in essays
Part 3 questions and Task 2 essays often ask about things nobody can be sure of. Two forms help.
- Might or could in the result makes a guess sound careful: If all cars were electric, the air in cities might be much cleaner.
- Were to after if sounds formal, and suits an essay: If governments were to cut research funding, fewer new medicines would reach patients.
Mistakes that cost marks
- If the government will spend more, ...: no will in the if half. Write If the government spends more, ...
- If I would have more time, ...: no would in the if half either. Write If I had more time, ...
- If scientists found a cure, many lives will be saved.: a past verb after if needs would in the result, so would be saved.
- If I am a scientist, I would ...: an imagined situation takes the past, If I were a scientist. In writing, use were with every subject. In speech, was is also common.
- If the test works the team will publish the results.: when the if half comes first, put a comma after it.
Watch me do one
The examiner asks: What would happen if governments stopped paying for scientific research?
Stopped and would tell me this is an imagined situation. So my answer uses the second conditional too: a past verb after if, and would in the result.
Before I speak, I decide what I actually think: companies would fill part of the gap, but only where they could see a profit.
So I start: If governments stopped paying, companies would probably fund some of the work. But they would choose research that could make money quickly.
Then a result I'm less sure of, and my view: Work on rare diseases, for example, might stop, because too few people would buy the medicine. That's why I think governments should keep paying.
Might makes that guess sound careful, which is honest, because nobody knows. It also gives the examiner another modal verb to hear, after would.
If the next question is about something that could really happen, such as Will more homes use solar power?, I switch to the first conditional: If panels keep getting cheaper, more families will put them on their roofs.
Practice with Elita7 questions
Seven questions. The first five are about conditionals, the last two about the words.
A real possibility
Complete the sentence with the right form of the verb in brackets. The speaker thinks this could really happen.
If the new battery (pass) its safety tests, it will go on sale next year.
Write no more than 1 word.
An imagined situation
The speaker is not a scientist. Choose the word that fits.
If I ______ a scientist, I would study the deep ocean.
How likely does she think it is?
Read what the speaker says, then decide how likely she thinks the condition is.
If I won a research grant, I would study coral reefs.
Both halves
Complete the sentence with the verbs in brackets. The speaker is imagining something that is not true now.
If every school (have) a science club, more children (choose) science at university.
Write no more than 2 words in each gap.
Find the mistake
This Part 3 answer is written out sentence by sentence. One sentence has a conditional mistake. Choose it.
Which sentence contains the error?
One word, no plural
Choose the phrase that completes the sentence correctly.
There is ______ that the new vaccine protects older people.
Words and meanings
Match each word to its meaning.
Use it
A Part 3 answer
Answer as you would in Part 3, in four to six sentences. Use the second conditional, and at least two words from this lesson.
Imagine scientists found a cheap way to turn seawater into drinking water. How would life change for people in dry countries?
Record your answer (90s maximum)
0:00 / 1:30
Set up your learning path at the top of this lesson to get band-specific feedback.
Before you go
Use the first conditional for a real possibility: if + present simple, then will, can or may.
Use the second conditional for something imagined or unlikely: if + past simple, then would, could or might.
Keep will and would out of the if half, and put a comma after it when it comes first.
You discover what was already there and invent what was not. Evidence has no plural.
Next: Next, you read about a solar still, a box that turns salt water into drinking water, and label its diagram and flow chart.