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Conditionals: The Big If

How good do you think your general knowledge is?
Do you have a good memory for facts and figures or do you always have to look up the same piece of information again and again?
A company is planning to launch a new board game called 'The Big If' that tests people's general knowledge. Players move around a board and answer questions in five categories:

1. Brainteasers

2. Entertainment/The Arts

3. Geography

4. History/Science

5. Sports

How did you do?

Conditionals and More: Alternatives to IF

As long as / provided / on condition that / only if

We can use these alternatives to if if we want to emphasize the conditions surrounding the action, i.e. one thing will happen only if another thing happens.

We can also use so long as and providing (that) as alternatives to as long as and provided (that). On condition that is formally very explicit. Provided / providing are more formal than as long as / so long as. Compare the following:

We will lend you the money on condition that it is repaid within 12 months.

We will lend you the money provided (that) you can repay it within 12 months.

I don’t mind talking to the press, but only if my identity is protected.

You can have the day off today providing you agree to work a double shift tomorrow.

You can borrow my DVD player as long as you return it on Monday.

Now try some exercise to test your knowledge about conditional sentences in general:
test one, mixed exercises and tutorial

Abraham Lincoln's Life

Click on the image to enlarge the page

Saint Patrick's History

St. Patrick is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland. He was born in the fourth century and is famous for bringing Christianity into Ireland. St. Patrick’s Day is a very well known Irish national holiday, which is celebrated not only in Ireland but all around the world. It falls on the 17th of March.

St. Patrick was born to wealthy parents in the late fourth century. Until the age of 16, he thought of himself as a pagan. He was kidnapped and sold as a slave at this age by Irish marauders. It was during this capture that he turned to God.
He managed to escape after being a slave for six years and then studied in a monastery in Gaul for 12 years. This was when he knew that his ‘calling’ was to try and convert all the pagans in Ireland to Christianity.
St. Patrick went around Ireland founding monasteries and successfully converting people to Christianity. The Celtic Druids were very unhappy with him and tried to arrest him several times but he always managed to escape.
After 30 years of being a missionary in Ireland, he finally settled down in a place called County Down. He died on the 17th of March, AD 461.
Go on reading

Try the Ireland Quiz to test if you have understood all the information.

Read about last year's post and other places celebrations thanks to Smithsonian Magazine.