I looked underneath the bed. but the box had gone!

Always put a sheet of paper underneath .

Prepositions of place – at, in, on

Main points

¨ You use ‘at’ to talk about a place as a point.

¨ You use ‘in’ to talk about a place as an area.

¨ You use ‘on’ to talk about a place as a surface.

1 You use ‘at’ when you are thinking of a place as a point in space.

She waited at the bus stop for over twenty minutes.

‘Where were you last night?’ – ‘At Mick’s house.’

2 You also use ‘at’ with words such as ‘back’, ‘bottom’, ‘end’, ‘front’, and ‘top’ to talk about the different parts of a place.

Mrs Castle was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

They escaped by a window at the back of the house.

I saw a taxi at the end of the street.

You use ‘at’ with public places and institutions. Note that you also say ‘at home’ and ‘at work’.

I have to be at the station by ten o’clock.

We landed at a small airport.

A friend of mine is at Training College.

She wanted to stay at home.

You say ‘at the corner’ or ‘on the corner’ when you are talking about streets.

The car was parked at the corner of the street.

There’s a telephone box on the corner.

You say ‘in the corner’ when you are talking about a room.

She put the chair in the corner of the room.

3 You use ‘in’ when you are talking about a place as an area. You use ‘in’ with:

- a country or geographical region

When I was in Spain, it was terribly cold.

A thousand homes in the east of Scotland suffered power cuts.

- a city, town, or village

I’ve been teaching at a college in London .

- a building when you are talking about people or things inside it