Replace the words given in italics by a gerund construction.
E.g. I don’t remember that he said anything like that. - I don’t remember his (him) saying (having said) anything like that.
1. I can’t even imagine that I would agree to such a proposal. 2. I can’t imagine that he would ever agree to such a proposal. 3. No one doubted that he was sincere in his beliefs. 4. No one will ever doubt that he was responsible for the accident. 5. Surely, they won’t deny that they are at loggerheads with the management. 6. Many women acknowledge that they suffer harsh treatment at home. 7. Few men admit that their wives suffer harsh treatment at home. 8. A group of MPs insisted that they should set up a special commission to inquire into the matter. 9. A group of MPs insisted that the government should set up a special commission to inquire into the matter. 10. We suspect that they allocate money for such projects illegally. 11. We suspect that they allocat ed money for the project illegally. 12. Mr Jackson is grateful that he has been released on bail. 13. They didn’t even acknowledge that they had received a copy of the contract. 14. The accused admitted that he had forged the signature of the head accountant on the document. 15. The witness reported that he had seen the security officer let the robbers into the bank. 16. The journalist reported that the witness had seen the security officer let the robbers into the bank. 17. The officer admitted that he had been offered a bribe. 18. Mr Donaldson admitted that he had been involved in a fraud. 19. I don’t recollect that I was promised any preferential treatment. 20. She mentioned that she had been given a tax allowance.
Supply the correct form of the verbs given in brackets. A. The Plot Thickens Charges against Abdelghan Mzoudi, a 30-year-old Moroccan, were upgraded from support of a terrorist cell to membership in a terror cell and accessory to murder. First (1) _______________ (to arrest) in October 2002, Mzoudi (2) _______________ (to accuse) of (3) ______________ (to aid) the cell members who planned and carried out the September 11 attacks in the USA. He is the second Moroccan (4) _______________ (to suspect) of (5) _______________ (to support) al-Qaeda. The new charges raise his possible sentence from 5 to 15 years. (From ‘Time’) B. Queen Has Knee Operation after Fall at Newmarket The Queen (1)_______________ (to expect) to leave hospital in London today after an operation to remove a torn cartilage from her knee. The 45-minute operation (2) _______________ (to conduct) by the royal surgeon, Roger Vickers, at the private King Edward VII hospital, was said to have been entirely successful, with the Queen (3) _______________ (to predict) to be fully active again within a few weeks. The 76-year-old sovereign wrenched her knee while (4) _______________ (to walk) on uneven ground during a private visit to Newmarket. The two-night hospital stay is the first the Queen (5) _______________ (to experience) in 20 years. She was last in the same hospital overnight in July 1982 to (6) ______ her wisdom tooth _______ (to remove), and it is 10 years since she (7) _______________ (to cancel) engagements for health reasons, once for the flu and once the same year after (8) _______________ (to receive) stitches in her hand after (9) _______________ (to bite) by a corgi. In January 1994 the Queen also broke a wrist after (10) _______________ (to fall) off a horse while she was out for a ride at Sandingham, but on that occasion she carried on with her arm in plaster. (From ‘The Guardian’, abridged) C. Accident-Prone Stretch of Railway ‘Renationalized’ One of the most accident-prone stretches of railway track in Britain is to be renationalized, unions claimed yesterday, with Network Rail (1) _______________ (to take) direct control of maintenance from the engineering firm Amey. The successor to Railtrack announced it (2) _______________ (to bring) in-house the responsibility for work on a stretch of line (3) _______________ (to run) west from London to Reading and Oxford. The decision breaks a stranglehold over maintenance (4) _______________ (to hold) by private contractors since the railways (5) _______________ (to privatize) in the mid-1990s. Network Rail said it expected to take “one or two” more regions back in-house but denied (6) _______________ (to motivate) by dissatisfaction with contractors. Network Rail’s announcement was the latest in a series of moves to increase central control over the railways, (7) _______________ (to prompt) suggestions of “creeping renationalization”. (8) _______________ (to bite the bullet[3]) on this one relatively small contract, Network Rail should now bring every maintenance contract back in-house as it expires. Amey (9) _______________ (to hold) the £50m-a-year Reading contract since 1994. The company will hand over to Network Rail when its (10) _______________ (to exist) agreement (11) _______________ (to run out) in March. (From ‘The Guardian’, abridged) D. Can Venice Be Saved? Water and Venice have always had a complicated relationship. The world’s most famous wet city is one of the most famously endangered ones, forever (1) _______________ (to flood) by its canals. Ever since the 14th century, Italian engineers (2) _______________ (to dream) of ways to control water. Now a solution may be at hand. Venice mayor Paola Costa attended a stone-laying ceremony in May to begin work on the long-delayed Moses project, a vast series of sea gates that may finally keep the sodden city dry. The need for Venetian water control never (3) _______________ (to be) greater. Especially high tides (4) _______________ (to cause) major floods 10 times in the past 67 years. Compression of sediment under the city, along with rising sea levels, often causes smaller floods, (5) _______________ (to shut) down businesses and (6) _______________ (to make) sidewalks and squares impassable. The source of the problem is geography. Venice is primarily a small cluster of (7) _______________ (to interlock) islands (8) _______________ (to set) in the northern end of a lagoon. A long ridge of land separates the lagoon from the far larger Gulf of Venice except at three major levels. These openings allow high gulf tides to become high Venice tides, with water sometimes (9) ______________ (to climb) far enough to swamp the city’s sea walls. In 1984, a commission (10) _______________ (to compose) of Italy’s 50 largest engineering and construction companies was formed to find a way to control the water flow through the inlets, and Moses is it. Moses includes 78 hollow sea gates (11) _______________ (to hinge) to foundations. The gates would usually be filled with water, but when tides rise, (12) _______________ (to compress) air would pump the water out. The free end of the gates would then float upward, (13) _______________ (to break) the surface after 30 minutes and (14) _______________ (to seal) off the inlets. The project could still run into obstacles, especially given the nature of Italian politics. (15) _______________ (to concern) that the gates would be raised so frequently and remain there so long that they would cause water in the lagoon to go stagnant, Greens (16) _______________ (to make) that argument in an environment-impact review that could delay or even scuttle construction. Even so, this is the closest Venice (17) _______________ (to come) to a permanent solution to its water problems in 700 years. By local bureaucratic standards, that’s not too bad. (From ‘Time’, abridged)
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