CAE practice

PART 1: CLOZE VOCABULARY

From the words listed below, choose the ones which best fit the space, A, B, C or D.
PARROT RUSTLING
Parrots and macaws have become so (01)......... that special varieties of these birds
are (02) ......... up to 9,000 each on the black market in Britain. Macaws from
Brazil cost from 1,000 and parrots from Australia can cost 7,500 a pair.
The demand for parrots, cockatoos and macaws has led to a (03)......... increase in
thefts from zoos, wildlife parks and pet shops. London and Whipsnade zoos are
among the many places from which parrots have been stolen. Some thefts have not
been (04)......... in an effort to prevent further (05).......... Parrot rustling, as it is
known among bird fanciers, has increased rapidly in Britain since 1976 when
imports and exports of (06)......... birds became (07)......... controlled.
Quarantine controls, (08)......... with the scarcity of many types of parrots in the
wild in Africa, Australia, Indonesia, and South America, have caused a shortage of
birds which can be sold legally under (09).......... This has sent prices to (10).........
levels.

Working at night and equipped with wire-cutters, nets and substances to dope the
birds, the rustlers are prepared to (11)......... serious risks to capture the parrots
they want. At Birdworld, a specialist zoo, thieves (12)......... two parrots after
picking their (13)......... through an enclosure containing cassowaries, The
cassowary is a large flightless bird, related to the emu, which can be extremely
(14)........., and has been (15)......... to kill humans with blows from its powerful
legs.

01. A. costly B. extinct C. outlandish D. rare

02. A. raising B. reaching C. lifting D. fetching
03. A. acute B. peak C. sharp D. high
04. A. published B. publicised C. advertised D. told
05. A. happenings B. incidents C. acts D. activities
06. A. unusual B. uncommon C. exotic D. strange
07. A. tightly B. hardly C. toughly D. grimly
08. A. coupled B. doubled C. attached D. accompanied
09. A. warranty B. guarantee C. licence D. law
10. A. unknown B. unheard C. record D. highest

11. A. sustain B. assume C. take D. make

12. A. thieved B. robbed C. misappropriated D. stole
13. A. way B. road C. path D. lane
14. A. aggressive B. fighting C. bad-tempered D. rough
15. A. heard B. known C. considered D. able
01. D. rare

09. C. licence

02. D. fetching

10. C. record

03. C. sharp

11. C. take

04. B. publicised

12. D. stole

05. B. incidents

13. A. way

06. C. exotic

14. A. aggressive

07. A. tightly

15. B. known

08. A. coupled

From the words listed below, choose the ones which best fit the space, A, B, C or
D.
OLYMPIC GAMES
It is not so much the scandals and disputes of recent years that have (01)..... the
Olympic Games. It is their (02).... enormity, their excessive cost, their (03)..... of
national pride. One very sensible suggestion is that future Games should be
(04)..... to individual events in which one person clearly wins. All team games
would (05)....., and no one would feel any loss at the disappearance of Olympic
soccer, a (06)..... shadow of the more professional game.

Anything which required judging would also be (07)...... One reason for this is the
difficulty of obtaining fair and accurate judges. An (08)..... example of this is the
case of Jacqueline de Bief, a former (9) world figure skating champion. She
revealed to the (10)..... that she was sometimes offered generous (11)..... in
exchange for what one newspaper called "an amorous adventure".

If events that required judging were excluded, it would also (12)..... the Games of
boxing, wrestling, and the boring diving competitions. It would also eliminate
sailing, largely a matter of boat building, and horse jumping, largely a matter of the
horse. Under (13)..... circumstances, the individual would be (14)..... to his rightful
place, and a (15)..... size to the Games would be achieved.

01. A. warned B. threatened C. reproached D. shocked

02. A. sheer B. vast C. heavy D. massive

03. A. pampering B. easing C. indulgence D. spoiling
04. A. held B. restricted C. limit D. decided
05. A. remove B. depart C. leave D. go
06. A. slight B. dull C. pale D. empty
07. A. undone B. left C. omit D. excluded
08. A. extreme B. outside C. upset D. unlimited
09. A. former B. ex C. passed D. formerly
10. A. paper B. press C. journal D. magazine
11. A. awards B. marks C. numbers D. odds
12. A. remove B. take C. rid D. scratch
13. A. such B. this C. most D. normal
14. A. retained B. ascended C. renovated D. restored
15. A. sane B. approximate C. accepted D. sensible

01. threatened

06. pale

11. marks

02. sheer

07. excluded

12. rid

03. indulgence

08. extreme

13. such

04. restricted

09. former

14. restored

05. go

10. press

15. sensible

From the words listed below, choose the ones which best fit the space, A, B, C or
D.
THE LOTTERY
The (01).............................. of lottery winners change their lives
(02).............................. little, and continue on their settled
(03).............................., happy ever after. A couple of years ago, a Mr David
Horabin won a million. He had been struggling to make a success of his dry
cleaning shop for the (04).............................. 12 months. He accepted his cheque
in a small ceremony at the (05).............................. at 2.30, and by three o'clock
he had reopened for business. The reaction of Mr Pasquale Consalvo who won $30
million in the New York state lottery was very (06)............................... He was
unhappy not to be able to fulfil his (07).............................. to go to work as usual
on the day he won. He also said that if the money made him unhappy he would

give it back. In fact, the (08) .............................. of his life being

(09).............................. a misery by his new-found wealth are almost as
(10) ........................., though not quite, as the sixty million-to-one odds he
(11).............................. to take a jackpot that had remained
(12).............................. through six previous draws. Gambling small
(13).............................. on the lottery is a harmless if futile
(14)............................... But gambling can become an addiction, increasingly so
as the activity becomes socially (15)...............................

01. A. most B. majority C. number D. quantity

02. A. but B. a C. scarcely D. not
03. A. way B. path C. road D. habit
04. A. earlier B. before C. recent D. past
05. A. site B. building C. company D. premises
06. A. appropriate B. linked C. similar D. same
07. A. passion B. ambition C. desire D. vocation
08. A. possibility B. probability C. chances D. odds
09. A. created B. made C. sent D. got
10. A. thin B. slim C. meagre D. reduced
11. A. cracked B. overwhelmed C. beat D. overthrew
12. A. unaccepted B. undone C. rejected D. unclaimed
13. A. quantities B. amounts C. money D. change
14. A. action B. sport C. hobby D. pastime
15. A. fashionable B. proper C. acceptable D. appropriate
01. B. majority

06. C. similar

11. C. beat

02. A. but

07. C. desire

12. D. unclaimed

03. A. way

08. C. chances

13. B. amounts

04. D. past

09. B. made

14. C. pastime

05. D. premises

10. B. slim

15. C. acceptable

Complete with one word only in each space.

HEALTH AND CIGARETTES

In many Western countries, girls are more (01) ............. to smoke than boys. It's
the girls who want to look "tough and grown-up." The result is that (02) .............
lung cancer in American men has fallen (03) ............. the first time in 50 years,
the disease is (04) ............. in women. The decrease in the disease among men is
attributed to a decrease in smoking among men (05) ............. the government's
first warning of a (06) ............. between cigarettes and disease in 1964. On the
other hand, lung cancer is now expected to overtake breast cancer (07) .............
the principal fatal cancer among women. (08) ............. your son or daughter is a
non-smoker, there is another good (09) ............. for rejecting a smoker as a lifelong mate. Smokers don't just ruin their own health by (10) ............. up. They are
a menace to (11) ............. Second-hand smoke is lethal. As the 18th report on
smoking by the United States Surgeon General (12) ............. it: "Involuntary
smoking is a (13) ............. of disease, including lung cancer, in healthy nonsmokers." (14) ............. to the report, at home, the children of parents who smoke
(15) ............. the effects in their respiratory systems. Smokers make their own
kids sick.
01. likely, liable

06. link, connection

11. others

02. while, although

07. as

12. it

03. for

08. If

13. cause

04. rising, increasing

09. reason

14. According

05. since, after

10. lighting

15. show

PART 4: WORD FORMATION

Complete with a word formed from those in the list.

John Lennon
Lennon, if he is a symbol of anything, is a symbol of (01) .......... , of play. He
believed you could change the world. If you made the right gesture, a (02) ..........
might take place. His life has become a myth, and high claims are made for him. He
said that the Beatles were better known than Jesus Christ, which seemed to
Christian (03) .......... a (04) .......... and (05) .......... thing to say, but he was
probably right. The (06) .......... thing is that, by his violent death, he seems
himself to have been elevated from musician, from supreme exponent of rock and
roll, to the rank of prophet, shaman, myth. His wife, Yoko Ono, still serves as the
(07) .......... of the myth, the keeper of the relics. She says: "He certainly wasn't a
person who kowtowed or tried to preserve himself by shutting up. It's a very
precious thing, I think, very (08).......... : this man who said it in a way for all of
us. People identified with him because he said the truth, especially the truth they
could not say."
01. CHILD .......................
02. TRANSFORM ......................
03. CHURCH ......................

04. SENSE ......................

05. RESPONSIBLE ......................
06. IRONY ......................
07. MAID ......................
08. COURAGE ......................

Northern Ireland
For thirty years Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland, was divided, torn by
(09) .......... riots, blasted by car bombs, patrolled by armoured cars. A whole
(10) .......... grew up in the city knowing nothing else but what the Irish
(11) .......... call "the troubles". The place suffered not only from violence, but from
poverty, low (12) .........., lack of incentive, lack of a future.
The young complained of (13) .......... by the police and security forces. But the
(14) .......... by terrorists, Catholic or Protestant, could be much worse. The
example is given of one 15-year-old Catholic boy with 85 offences behind him. He
fled from Northern Ireland after being told that the IRA was waiting at his home.
Six cushions had been laid out in his sitting room in(15) .......... for a (16) ..........
shooting - elbows, knees and ankles. This was a country where the concepts of law
and order no longer had any meaning.
09. SECT ......................
10. GENERATE ......................
11. EUPHEMISM ......................
12. EXPECT ......................
13. VICTIM ......................
14. HARASS ......................
15. PREPARE ......................
16. PUNISH ......................

Check your answers.

01. childhood

05. irresponsible

10. generation

02. transformation

06. ironic, ironical

11. euphemistically

03. churchmen, churchgoers

07. handmaiden

12. expectations

08. courageous

13. victimisation

09. sectarian

14. harassment

04. senseless

15. preparation

16. punishment