The Apology That Left Nothing to Chance
C2 reading: By the time the director apologised, the apology had acquired a working group. Includes vocabulary, six comprehension questions, discussion prompts and full-sentence answers.
What’s in the worksheet?
- 4 vocabulary explanations
- Six comprehension questions and two discussion prompts
- Separate full-sentence answer key and teaching notes
Read a satirical apology in which procedural care gradually removes clear responsibility. The language of consultation, passive formulations and postponed action invites C2 learners to examine irony rather than only label the director insincere.
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A simple way to teach it
Before the lesson
Use the text and six questions with the suggested key withheld. Check formulation, unanimous, dispiriting and defensible; distinguish the narrator's irony from the institution's wording.
- Trace the revisions from an explicit admission to language with no clear agent. Explain the junior employee's distinction between feelings and the original error.
- Answer the questions on separating apology from corrective action and the phrase 'too generous'. Explore both readings of the title through details in the passage.
- Compare other defensible interpretations with the key, then discuss what a concrete correction would add to carefully managed regret.
Support and extension
Support with the successive formulations side by side. Extend by rewriting one admission with clear agency, explaining what changes without claiming that every passive sentence is evasive.
Suggested approach. Adjust the pace and number of questions to suit your class.
