Phrasal verb: look

[Haihao]

English Language Tests, Intermediate level

ESL/EFL Test #195 "Phrasal Verbs (L)", question 9

Before Sheila died from a long cancer battle, she asked her sister to ......... her children.

(a) look down
(b) look over
(c) look in

English Language Tests, Intermediate level

ESL/EFL Test #195 "Phrasal Verbs (L)", answer 9

Before Sheila died from a long cancer battle, she asked her sister to look over her children.

Correct answer: (b) look over

Your answer was: correct
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Hi,

Look over seems to be the only choice among the three but I feel it still weird in the context. Should it have been 'look after'?

haihao

[Yankee]

.
Oh, dear. I hadn't seen this test question before.
You are right, Haihao. There isn't any correct choice given. 'Look after' would be an appropriate phrasal verb here.

The wording could also use some improvement:

Before Sheila died from a long cancer battle, she asked her sister to look after her children.

Amy

Torsten, the red part also needs improvement.

- die from/of cancer
- battle with cancer

(But normally a person dies of cancer, not from the battle with it)
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Amy
.
ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Linda]

Hello,
As far as the sentence, I think it's OK because people die from battles all the time. Battle, in this context, is referring to the long, arduous process which eventually took her life. So, it's implied that, of course, the cancer took her life but that also, of course, she battled with it and then lost the battle.
As far as the 'look over' portion, I have heard that phrasal verb used many times before. It's especially used when speaking about children and taking care of them. I believe it's an American phrasal verb. People 'look over' or 'look after' children all the time.
For example, "Will you look over my young children when I'm gone?" I don't see the problem because I've heard it many times before and grammatically, it's like many other phrasal verbs such as 'look after,' for example.
I'm sorry if this caused any confusion.
Linda
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[Alan]

Hi Haihao,

You might care to look at a piece I've written for the site using 'look' as a phrasal verb:

Phrasal verb look
http://www.english-test.net/lessons/14/index.html

A
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[Alan]

Hi,

I think I'd prefer something like 'battle with cancer as an expression' also and to me 'look over' usually means 'check' as in: I've written a reply but I'm not sure it's good enough so would you care to look over it for me?

A
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