thought

passive + TO infinitve (belief or opinion)

Point 73 GSE B2+ is defined: express impersonal belief and opinion using ‘thought/considered/believed/etc.’ +’ to’ + VP infSTUDENT STUDENT EXAMPLES: Moreover, English is considered to be an international language. PELIC Thai male level 5 writing class.   In addition, he is believed to be the first teacher, because the first education system in ancient China was established by Confucius. PELIC Chinese male level 5 grammar class. EXPERT EXAMPLE: After all, the first intentional human burial is thought to have occurred around 100,000 years ago.

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ALWAYS + PAST SIMPLE ( habitual past )

Habitual states or actions are regular occurrences that can be physical, mental, or emotional. The Past Simple tense in English often expresses these habitual states or actions that occurred in the past but may no longer happen in the present. Learn more about how language can indicate habitual states or actions and how they are defined in the English Grammar Profile.

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I thought… (polite)

English Grammar Profile C1 point 80 in the category of PAST is defined as: past simple ‘I thought’ as a politeness structure to sound less direct. However, there is no way to formally decide if this is actually a politeness construction.  If it is not, it might still contain B2 modal passive or B1 reporting structures. For

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‘It is said that …’ (IT + passive)

Let’s take a look at an IELTS writing task 2 example with this grammar: It is argued that volunteering should be made a part of the school curriculum. In the above example, ‘is argued‘ forms the passive part.  The active form of this is probably: ‘People argue that…” In our example, ‘people’ is not important or maybe we don’t know who

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NEVER BEFORE + perfect inversion

‘never + inversion‘ is B2 with or without past perfect.  The following examples use present perfect simple + inversion: Never before has man possessed so much power. listen Never before have so many people risen so far so fast, on so many different dimensions. listen Here’s an example with past perfect inversion without ‘before’: Never had I felt such an incomprehensible emptiness within myself. listen In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 68 in  PAST is defined as: past perfect

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adverbial phrases with AT

AT is by far the most common as a simple preposition.  AT is also used in adverbial phrases which we have listed in order of most frequent according to iWeb corpus and then given examples of their usage in sentences: 1 AT ALL 1232801 Maybe they weren’t thinking about anything at all. listen Actually, in traumatic situations,  it‘s not at all uncommon. listen 2 AT FIRST 403759

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