TASK 24. Use the best suitable word in each gap.

1. I went to the conference but for most of the time I felt __________ (1) a fish out of water. I knew nobody there and everyone else behaved __________ (2) if they had all known each other for years. I left just __________ (3) soon as I could and arrived home __________ (4) than planned.

2. I've always preferred classical music __________ (1) pop music. I'd much __________ (2) listen to a forty-five-minute symphony __________ (3) a three-minute song. Pop songs seem so __________ (4) less interesting, harmonically and melodically, and the insistent, repetitive drumming is about __________ (5) much fun __________. (6) banging your head against a wall.

3. My father was a jack of all trades in those days, as __________ (1) all village school headmasters: digging holes for swimming pools __________ (2) a full-time labourer, marking out athletics tracks in the manner __________ (3) a professional, teaching arithmetic to the top class in __________ (4) time as he had free. The __________ (5) he did, the more was expected of him by the village community, as if he should __________ (6) every waking hour to the well-being of his pupils. And he did. Nowadays one hears people talk of headmasters as if they __________ (7) accountants, balancing their __________ (8) as efficiently __________ (9) they can. I think I'd __________ (10) have been a headmaster in the old days.

****TASK 25. Revision: adjectives and adverbs. Use the best suitable word in each gap.

Whether or not we are __________ (1) in the universe is a question that has vexed humankind for centuries. But we are __________ (2) to live in an era when the technology exists to allow us to come __________ (3) to giving an answer. Up to now, __________ (4) only was a belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life often __________ (5) on personal rather than religious conviction, __________ (6) was perhaps __________ (7) much based on faith. But scientifically the possibility cannot be discounted and, perhaps more __________ (8) at any other time in history, the subject is no longer liable __________ (9) be dismissed as a crank's discipline. For example, can we estimate the number of civilisations within our own Milky Way galaxy? These days scientists believe that in some __________ (10) they now have a not __________ (11) knowledge of the factors involved in producing such civilisations. The rate of formation of suitable stars - that is, ones __________ (12) Earth which are hot __________ (13) to sustain life and live long enough to allow life to evolve - is a __________ (14) starting point. Astronomers are confident __________ (15) they can assess this rate of formation at .......... (16) one star per year. However, these stars also need to have habitable planets. __________ (17) in the last five years have scientists found evidence that at least some stars (other than our own star, the sun) have planetary systems. Broadly __________ (18), perhaps one in ten stars have planets orbiting them. But we also require that these planets are warm enough to have liquid water, a basic component integral __________ (19) life on Earth and presumably life elsewhere, and are not lacking __________ (20) an atmosphere that can both provide protection and sustenance to developing life.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 1398