By the end of this exercise, you can ask a company for information politely — using indirect questions such as “Could you tell me when the placement starts?” instead of a blunt direct question.
Free Year 9 English practice: work experience and job interviews, with indirect questions, question tags, self-marking gap-fills and an email writing task.
Read the text and choose the word that fits each gap. The bold phrases show you indirect questions at work.
In Year 9 most German students spend two weeks in a company. The idea is simple: before you choose a career, you should find out what a normal working 1 really looks like. Many students say afterwards that the fortnight taught them more than a whole term of 2.
Getting a place is the hard part. You write to a company and ask politely whether they have a place for a student in March. If you are lucky, you are invited to an 3. Employers rarely expect much knowledge, but they do want to know why you have chosen their company and how you will get to work every morning.
The work itself is usually 4 and rarely glamorous. You may photocopy, answer the 5 or simply watch. Even so, a fortnight in a hospital or a garage tells you something no website can: whether you actually 6 the noise, the smell and the people.
At the end you write a 7 for your teacher. The best ones are the honest ones — including those written by students who discovered that they never want to 8 the experience.
After Could you tell me..., Do you know... or I’d like to know... the question goes back to normal word order — subject before verb, and no do/does/did.
1. Could you tell me where the office ?
2. Do you know what time the shop ?
3. I’d like to know you offer placements in March.
4. Could you tell me how much a monthly bus ticket ?
5. She asked me I had any experience with computers.
6. Do you know where I find the manager?
7. I wonder the interview will take.
8. Can you tell me why the train late this morning?
A positive sentence takes a negative tag and a negative sentence takes a positive one, using the same auxiliary. Items 6 and 7 come back from earlier units — phrasal verbs (India) and relative pronouns (Famous & Hollywood).
1. You’ve already sent your application, ?
2. She isn’t coming to the office today, ?
3. Let’s ask the manager about the hours, ?
4. You’ll call me tomorrow morning, ?
5. Nobody told you about the meeting, ?
6. I still have to the application form before Friday.
7. The woman interviewed me was the head of the department.
8. There’s a bus at eight, ?
Your school has a partner company in Leeds. Write an email of 6–8 sentences to Ms Hughes, the office manager, asking for a two-week placement in March and for the information you need before you travel. Use at least three indirect questions.
• When the working day starts and finishes
• Whether you have to wear special clothes
• What kind of work you would do
• Who you should report to on the first morning
Review your answers below, then send them to your teacher.
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