English Together · B1 Preliminary · Chapter 1
Tom's best bus story — and the chapter where the ladder turns upside down: you listen before you read. Prototype of the B1 format.
0 of 20 modules complete
At A1 you understood first and heard last. From B1 it is the other way round: the story reaches your ears before your eyes. The text stays closed until your listening has earned it.
Ears first. The ear is slower than the eye — that is normal, and it is exactly why it goes first now. Two listens before any text is not a punishment; it is how the language gets in.
You will meet the same story four times — and the text only appears on the third pass. Then come the modules: nineteen tasks across the six skills, on this story and on the unit's Culture File, and the game closes the chapter.
Each check needs 70–80% to open the next step. And a difference from A1: there is no help on a first miss. Get it wrong, you simply try again. Only a second miss opens support — and only on the hardest questions. At this level, the struggle is part of the method.
You have finished the book. From here the chapter works in modules: each one a double page with the full text on one side and ten exercises on the other. Modules 6–12 work on Tom's story; modules 13–19 work on the unit's Culture File — How a City Moves. The game closes the chapter.
Two things change at this level. The text no longer underlines where answers live. And there is no help on a first miss — you look again yourself. Miss the same check twice and support opens, on the hardest questions only.
Tom's story runs on two tenses, and the difference between them is the grammar of this whole chapter. Not to memorise — to consult until you stop needing it.
| tense | when | from the story | signal words |
|---|---|---|---|
| past simple | finished time, closed chapter | I started in 1981. · The fare came to £11.50. · The buses stopped taking cash in 2014. | in 1994 · yesterday · ago · when I was 22 |
| present perfect | started in the past, still true now | It has been on my wall since 1994. · I have kept that letter ever since. · I have told that story a hundred times. | since · ever since · always · never · already · yet |
A finished date kills the present perfect. "I have started in 1981" is wrong — 1981 is over, so it takes the past simple: "I started in 1981."
But something that is still true refuses the past simple: the photo is still on the wall, so "It has been there since 1994" — not "it was".
Nila's five facts about how London actually moves. Same two tenses, real numbers, and a city to argue with. The full text sits beside every module from here.
🎧 Listen to the Culture File
The game does not open in the prototype. In the live course this card leads to the chapter's game.