Each of the following mini-texts is followed by a statement in which one word, or group of words, has been left out. Read through each text and decide which of the four alternatives should be used to complete the statement so that it fits in with the text. Mark the best alternative: A, B, C, or D.
Text 1: Chocolate
Here’s one for chocoholics to chew on. After consuming drinks enriched with compounds found in cocoa beans for three months, the performance of people aged 50 to 69 on a memory test was akin to someone several decades younger. Problem is, if you want such a benefit from eating chocolate, you would have to eat staggering amounts.
Text 2 – Food
Seagulls have long had a voracious appetite for our leftovers. In recent years, though, it seems they have become bolder, snatching ice creams and sandwiches straight from the hands of families strolling along at seaside resorts. The number of gulls there has swelled with the popularity of eating on the move.
Text 3 – Ships
In 1845, British officers and crew set out on two ships for the Northwest Passage. Historians believe the ships were lost in 1848 after they became locked in the ice and the crew abandoned them in a hopeless bid to reach safety. The well-preserved wreck of one of the vessels has now been found.
Text 4 – Tortoises
Where once there were 15, now more than 1000 giant tortoises lumber around Espanola, one of the Galapagos Islands. After 40 years’ work reintroducing captive animals, a detailed study of the island’s ecosystem has confirmed it has a stable, breeding population. Numbers had dwindled drastically by the 1960s, but now the danger of extinction on Espanola appears to have passed.
Text 5 – Gladiators
Roman gladiators had a diet that was mostly vegetarian, according to an analysis of bones from a cemetery where the arena fighters were buried. The researchers found the gladiator diet was grain-based and mostly meat-free. The examination of gladiator bones also found evidence they drank a drink made from plant ashes, which helped them to recover after fighting and training.
Text 6 – Research
Cambridge University is seeking a Ph.D. student to work on a project to invent a heat-resistant chocolate bar. The “doctor of chocolate” will “investigate the factors which allow chocolate to remain solid in warm climates”, the job advertisement states.
- Read the text first before you attempt to answer any questions.
- Find the part of the text which answers the question. The answers to the questions will generally follow in the same order in the text.
- Make sure there is evidence for your answer in the text and that it is not just an answer you think is right.
- Don’t choose an answer simply because a word in the question appears in the text. Sometimes specific words are used to trick you.
- Check that your chosen option is correct by trying to find out why the other options are incorrect.