Underline the examples of continuous tenses in the following passage from a Reading
text, then complete the summary below using continuous verbs from the text.
The am ount of leisure tim e available to people has been increasing since the early
tw entieth century when machines started to be invented to do many labour intensive
tasks both at w ork and in the home. Previously, people were spending many more hours
doing basic m enial tasks and as a result had less tim e available fo r hobbies and activities.
Although recently many people have been com plaining about th e ir w ork life balance,
studies show that the am ount of free tim e we have has been rising continuously fo r over
50 years. More people are playing sport on a re g ula r basis nowadays and young people
are taking up tra d itio n a l style hobbies such as knitting and w alking in the countryside.
There has also been a large am ount of governm ent investm ent in leisure fa cilitie s in local
com m unities, which has assisted the uptake of hobbies fo r a range of people including
children and the elderly. A few years ago, visitors to a local park would see people who
were playing football o r w alking th e ir dog. However, nowadays people are using the gym or
a clim bing w a ll as th e ir way of sporting recreation.
Summary
Over the last half century the am ount of personal free tim e that people have
(1 ) __________ Despite the fact that the general opinion of the public is that they have
less leisure tim e than in the past the reality is the opposite. Nowadays more of us
(2 ) _________ sport regularly and the younger generation (3 )___________tra d ition a l
leisure pursuits such as crafts and outdoor activities.
