Here is a fact worth sitting with: every student in Sri Lanka gets exactly the same 168 hours a week. Not one minute more for the nine-A student, not one minute less for the one who struggles. So why the huge gap in results? Almost never raw cleverness — it's what each of them does with those identical hours. This unit gives you the English to talk about time: to discuss it, apologise when you've wasted someone else's, and describe how a day is split up.
The grammar that fits is time clauses — when, as soon as, by the time, before, after — the little hinge-words that pin one action to another, plus the polite shape of an apology and the phrases for describing a pie chart. You will write an apology dialogue, a pie-chart description, and a 200-word essay on managing time.
Keep one of these in your back pocket. An essay that opens with a sharp quotation sounds like it knows where it's going from the first line — and the examiner notices. Don't just drop it and run, though: quote it, then answer it. "Franklin called time money. He was wrong — it's worse than money, because you can earn money back."
| Saying | Who said it |
|---|---|
| "Remember that time is money." | Benjamin Franklin |
| "Time stops for no one." | — |
| "Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." | William Penn |
| "One always has time enough, if one will apply it well." | Goethe |
| "A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." | Charles Darwin |
This little table from the textbook does something clever: it teaches the value of time by changing who is counting it. A year is nothing to most of us — but to the student who just failed a final, a whole year is everything. A millisecond is invisible — until you're the heart surgeon whose hand slips. The lesson hiding inside the table is that time isn't measured in clocks; it's measured in what each person stands to lose.
| Time lost | Who would know the value of it? |
|---|---|
| One year | a student who has failed a final exam |
| One month | a mother whose baby was born prematurely |
| One week | an editor of a weekly newspaper |
| One day | a daily-wage worker |
| One hour | two lovers waiting at a railway station |
| One minute | a passenger who has missed the train |
| One second | an Olympic 100-m sprinter |
| One millisecond | the surgeon performing open-heart surgery |
A time clause ties one action to another in time — it answers "when does the main thing happen?" "I will call you as soon as I reach home." The first half is the plan; the time clause pins it to a moment. These hinge-words — when, as soon as, by the time, while, before, after — are everywhere in everyday speech.
But here is the one rule that catches almost everyone. After a time word, the verb stays in the present even when the meaning is clearly future. We say "I will call you as soon as I reach home" — not "as soon as I will reach". English only lets you put one "will" in the sentence — it goes in the main half (the plan), and the time clause is already understood to be future, so it doesn't need its own "will".
| Word | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| when | at the moment of | When the bell rings, we leave the class. |
| as soon as | immediately after | I will call you as soon as I reach home. |
| by the time | at or before that point | By the time you arrive, lunch will be ready. |
| while | during, simultaneously | Read while you wait for the bus. |
| before | earlier than | Finish your homework before you watch TV. |
| after | later than | I shower after I exercise. |
Saying sorry well is a skill, and the exam rewards a particular four-step shape because it's how a sincere apology actually works in real life. A mumbled "sorry sir" earns little; an apology that owns the lateness, explains it honestly, promises better, and accepts the cost sounds genuinely mature.
The other half of the exchange matters too, because the exam often asks for the teacher's reply. It almost always carries advice plus a warning: "You should leave home earlier from now on. Otherwise you will be marked absent." That should/otherwise pair is your signal the reply is doing its job.
Describing a pie chart isn't about listing every slice — it's about comparing them, and the examiner is literally hunting for five comparison phrases. Think of yourself as a tour guide walking the reader round the chart: start at the biggest slice, swing down to the smallest, point out any two that are equal, and pick out a "more than / less than" pair.
The finishing touch that lifts a description from "fine" to "very good": after the comparisons, add one line of meaning — "in short, almost two-thirds of the day goes to studying and sleeping." The examiner wants to see you understood the chart, not just read it.
The model dialogue between Hassan, Rajan and their master-in-charge marches through the four apology moves without ever feeling like a checklist. The boys open with respect ("Good morning sir") and an immediate apology, give an honest reason specific enough to be believable (a 40-minute delay, a named station — Nugegoda), promise it won't repeat, and accept the teacher's authority. The master's reply does its own job perfectly: advice plus warning — "you should leave earlier… otherwise you will be marked absent."
The pie-chart model description on how a Grade 11 student spends the day is built exactly on the five phrases: it opens by saying what the chart is, then walks the data as a guide would — highest (studying 34%), the runner-up, a more-than comparison (travelling vs relaxing, "more than three times"), an equal pair (classes and eating, 8% each), and the lowest (relaxing 4%). Crucially it doesn't stop at the numbers — the last two sentences add meaning ("almost two-thirds… a worrying balance"), which is the line that earns the top band.
| Task | Official word count |
|---|---|
| Notice (Test 6) | 40–50 words |
| Short paragraph (Test 8) | 50–60 words |
| Apology dialogue | ~80 words — greeting, apology, honest reason, promise, teacher's advice |
| Pie chart / dialogue / letter (Test 14) | ~100 words |
| Time-management essay (Test 16) | ~200 words — quote → diagnosis → 3 habits → call to action |
Pie-chart and bar-graph description is a guaranteed Test 14 task — worth ten marks that come easily once you've drilled the five phrases. Time clauses turn up in the verb-form passages, and "time management / value of time" is a regular essay theme. The apology shape feeds the dialogue tasks.
| Past-paper test | What was tested |
|---|---|
| 2015 Test 14 (a) | Letter about a saving-habit programme — time-management theme |
| 2019 Test 14 (b) | Pie-chart description on Mr. Perera's salary |
| 2017 Test 13 / 2015 Test 7 | Poetic comprehension on time (Under Ground; 100-year-old lady learning a computer) |
| 2022 Test 12 | Speech ('Thank you teacher') with time clauses (whenever / although / because) |
| 2018 Test 14 (b) | Bar graph on student subject choices — pie-chart cousin |