Business English vocabulary exercise, intermediate level.
This exercise gives you practice using five verbs for describing trends: rise, raise, lower, fall, grow.
Instructions:
1. Study the vocabulary, including ‘how to use’ and the example sentences.
2. Do the exercise below and check your answers.
rise |
rise |
rise |
| verb | to go up, to increase | |
| how to use | intransitive verb (the verb never has an object) irregular verb rise, rose, risen something rises; prices rise; inflation rises; rise from $80 to $90 = rise by $10 |
|
| examples | 1. Inflation is rising at the moment. 2. Inflation rose by half a per cent last month. 3. Oil prices have risen again. |
|
raise |
raise |
raise |
| verb | to make something go up; to make something higher or bigger | |
| how to use | synonym: increase raise something; raise prices; raise tax; raise standards |
|
| examples | 1. The company has raised employees’ salaries by 5%. 2. The Government raised taxes last year. compare raise and rise: the company is raising the price / the price is rising |
|
lower |
low.er |
lower |
| verb | to move something down, move something to a low position or amount |
|
| how to use | synonyms: decrease, reduce lower something; lower tax; lower interest rates |
|
| examples | 1. The National Bank has lowered interest rates by 1%. 2. They have lowered the rate of income tax for married couples. |
|
fall |
fall |
fall |
| verb | to became less; to become lower in amount or size or strength | |
| how to use | intransitive verb (the verb never has an object) irregular verb fall, fell, fallen something falls; inflation falls; sales fall; turnover falls; demand falls; fall from $90 to $80 = fall by $10 |
|
| examples | 1. Our annual turnover has fallen from $15m to $14m. 2. Unfortunately, demand for our products fell last year. |
|
grow |
grow |
grow |
| verb | to increase in number or amount over a period of time | |
| how to use | intransitive verb (the verb never has an object) something grows; demand grows, interest in something grows; profits grow; grow by 20% |
|
| examples | 1. Last year profits grew by 8%. 2. Interest in e-books has grown a lot in the last few years. |
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Test yourself
Now try the exercise below. Fill in each gap with one word (rise, raise, lower, fall, or grow) in its correct form:
