Conditionals

Emmerson, p.224


Exercise 1

Underline the correct words.

1        If we sent the goods by sea, the transport costs will / would be much lower.

2        If they promote / promoted the brand better, they’ll gain market share.

3        If you left / had left earlier, you might have got there on time.

4        If anyone from Head Office visits, they always stay / will stay in a five star hotel.

5        If I were you, I’d / I’ll call their Technical Support number.

6        If I have / had more time, I’d be able to come up with a solution.

7        If it breaks down / will break down, it takes days for the service engineer to arrive.

8        If you needed the money urgently, I could phone / could have phoned Accounts now to try
and speed up your payment.

9        If you enter the date in the wrong format, the computer doesn’t / didn’t recognise the
information.

10    If we’d been / we were more careful, we wouldn’t have lost so much money.

11    If I had bought more shares, I would become / would have become rich!

12    If your second interview goes / will go well, I’m sure they’ll offer you the job.

13    If you would have backed up / backed up your files more often, you wouldn’t risk / didn’t
risk losing all your work.

14    If you hadn’t / wouldn’t have acted so quickly, we’d be / we are in big trouble.


Exercise 2

Complete each sentence, using the verb in brackets in one of these forms: will do, would do, would
have done.

1        If we got a virus on the network, we _____________________ (lose) all our data.

2        If my train isn’t late, I _____________________ (be) in Paris at six.

3        If your talk had been shorter, I think they ____________________ (ask) more questions.

4        If you tell me what you want, I __________________ (get) it for you at the airport.

5        We ____________________ (get) more inquiries if we advertised more often.

6        If we hadn’t left so early, we ____________________ (miss) the train.

7        If I worked abroad, I ___________________ (see) my family so often.

8        If you haven’t got any change, I _____________________ (leave) the tip.

9        We _____________________ (sort out) the problem much sooner if we had had the manual.

10    If you were in his situation, what ____________________ (you/do)?


Exercise 3

Complete each sentence using if or unless.

1        Their offices are very near. We’ll walk there, __________ it’s raining.

2        We would probably get the contract ___________ we dropped our price a little.

3        Come on! ___________ we hurry, we’ll miss the plane.

4        What would you do ___________ they refused to negotiate?

5        I don’t feel able to take a decision __________ I have all the figures.