Book of the Month
Longman Advanced Learners' Grammar

Publisher: Longman
Authors: Mark Foley and Diane Hall
€24.00

ISBN 978-0-582-40383-3

Upper intermediate and above


It's always pleasant to find a book that does a bit of the reviewer's work for him, and this book has a section in introduction with titles such as 'What is in this book?' and 'Who is this book for?' So with the authors' intentions already made plain, all the reviewer simply has to check if the book does as they say. The intention of this book is to enable an already advanced English user to find what is wrong with his English and fix it. Once this is done, he can go on to use the rest of the book to further improve his English skills. The book also pays attention to the connection between grammar and vocabulary (e.g. in transitive verbs) and in levels of formality. It is fair to say that this book will certainly do as intended for a student prepared to work hard with the material.

The book is a solid piece of work, consisting of 384 pages of text with only a few black-and-white pictures and drawings. The first 45 pages contain diagnostic tests, which the student can do to find what aspects of his English need to be improved. Answers are checked against an answer key, and the student then goes on to exercises designed to improve that area of grammar. The 45 pages of diagnostic tests have a slightly annoying lilac (blueish) background colour which is a more aggressive version of the overall blue-and-white colour theme of the book. If you want to skip the diagnostic tests you can go on to the main units at once, or find the parts you want to study in the index. These 'parts' are the usual aspects of English - adjectives, tenses, gerunds and so on, with the usual gap-fills and substitution tests that can be found in many textbooks. This is the main part of the book, taking up about 300 pages, with the answer key at the back. A useful aspect to these exercises is that they have been designed with students talking the Cambridge Advanced and Proficiency tests in mind, so there is a strong resemblance to these exams in the exercise layouts.

Who is this book for? Well, it calls itself ''A self-study reference and practice book with answers' and indeed, anyone wanting to practice English grammar away from the internet will find this book useful if they are already of a reasonably high standard. I say 'away from the internet' because this book is not cheap websites such as English for Everybody offer the same exercises, but for free and more interactively. Teachers planning to use this book will need some games prepared from elsewhere to lighten up the class, as this book is uncompromisingly hard work.

Verdict: Solid stuff - for a solid price.
Assessment 7/10


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