Little (9) .......... the team know that a small collection of letters would lead to a much larger project. In fact, the more frequently a word is heard, (10) .......... more likely it is to be retained by speakers. The archive contains thousands of contributions, but not all of (11) .......... are equally useful to researchers.
Editors must decide whether or (12) .......... a spelling represents a genuine local pattern. Even (13) .......... a term seems familiar, its history may be complex. Words can disappear unless (14) .......... are recorded at the moment they are used, and meanings may shift in ways that surprise the people (15) .......... use them most often. Such changes are often less arbitrary (16) .......... they first appear.
Contributors are asked to include the date, place and circumstances in which an expression was heard. Without that information, editors may be unable to tell whether a term belonged to a particular occupation, age group or family. They also compare letters with recordings, because spelling can disguise the pronunciation that made a word distinctive. A single example rarely settles an argument, but a pattern of examples can. For that reason, uncertain entries are retained with notes rather than being silently discarded by editors.
Little (9) .......... the team know that a small collection of letters would lead to a much larger project. In fact, the more frequently a word is heard, (10) .......... more likely it is to be retained by speakers. The archive contains thousands of contributions, but not all of (11) .......... are equally useful to researchers.
Editors must decide whether or (12) .......... a spelling represents a genuine local pattern. Even (13) .......... a term seems familiar, its history may be complex. Words can disappear unless (14) .......... are recorded at the moment they are used, and meanings may shift in ways that surprise the people (15) .......... use them most often. Such changes are often less arbitrary (16) .......... they first appear.
Contributors are asked to include the date, place and circumstances in which an expression was heard. Without that information, editors may be unable to tell whether a term belonged to a particular occupation, age group or family. They also compare letters with recordings, because spelling can disguise the pronunciation that made a word distinctive. A single example rarely settles an argument, but a pattern of examples can. For that reason, uncertain entries are retained with notes rather than being silently discarded by editors.
Question 9
Exam guide & reading text▾
What gets remembered — Part 2: Open Cloze
"What gets remembered" targets the Open Cloze (Part 2) of the Cambridge C1 Proficiency exam. Unlike Part 1, no options are provided — you must supply single words (articles, prepositions, auxiliaries, pronouns, conjunctions or discourse markers) that complete the text grammatically and logically. Scan each gap for the grammatical slot it occupies: is it linking clauses, marking reference, or completing a fixed structure? Small words carry heavy weight at C2 level.
Little (9) .......... the team know that a small collection of letters would lead to a much larger project. In fact, the more frequently a word is heard, (10) .......... more likely it is to be retained by speakers. The archive contains thousands of contributions, but not all of (11) .......... are equally useful to researchers.
Editors must decide whether or (12) .......... a spelling represents a genuine local pattern. Even (13) .......... a term seems familiar, its history may be complex. Words can disappear unless (14) .......... are recorded at the moment they are used, and meanings may shift in ways that surprise the people (15) .......... use them most often. Such changes are often less arbitrary (16) .......... they first appear.
Contributors are asked to include the date, place and circumstances in which an expression was heard. Without that information, editors may be unable to tell whether a term belonged to a particular occupation, age group or family. They also compare letters with recordings, because spelling can disguise the pronunciation that made a word distinctive. A single example rarely settles an argument, but a pattern of examples can. For that reason, uncertain entries are retained with notes rather than being silently discarded by editors.