FCE (First Certificate in English)- Open Cloze Card Games

Cambridge First Use of English Part Two open cloze card games

Work in groups of three or four. Deal out the whole pack of cards between you. To discard cards, you have to make a sentence with a gap that one of your words should go into and test your partners with it, for example reading it out with “Blank”, “Beep” and “Something something” in the place of that word. If at least one person in your group gets the answer wrong and you all agree that your word or words are the only words that could go in the gap, you can place your card down on the table. As long as the gap can really only take that word, it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes in grammar etc elsewhere in your sentence. The person with fewest cards left in their hand at the end of the game is the winner.

With some of your other cards, try to make example sentences where the word on your card is the only possible word in the gap. If your partners agree, you can discard that card and score a point.

All the words are real answers to FCE Use of English Part Two exam tasks. Put the cards into categories by the kinds of words which they are.

 

Hint 1: There are 8 categories.  

 

Hint 2: The categories are:

prepositions

linking words

determiners

auxiliary verbs

reference words

relative pronouns

question words

time expressions other than prepositions

Some words can go into more than one category.

 

Check your answers with the suggested answers on the following page.

 

Cards to cut up

a	across	against	ago
all	although	an	and
another	any	anything	as
at	be	because	becoming/ getting
been	before	being	beyond
but	by	can	will
despite	did	does	due/ owing
during	enough	every	everything
few	for	from	whose
had	has	have	his
how	if/ whether	in	instead
into	is	it	its
just	last	like	little
could/ may/ might	yet	much	must

nevertheless	no	nor	of
off	on	one	or
others	our	over	would
past	previous	should	since
so	such	that	the
their	them	themselves	there
these	this	though	thus
to	unless	unlike	until
up	us	was	what
when	where	without	which
while/ whilst	who

 

Suggested answers

prepositions

from, for, in, on, to, as, at, before, by, of, off, across, against, ago, beyond, into, like, over, until, up, without

linking words

if, though, although, as, but, so, and, despite, or, since, while, whilst, because, due, during, instead, nevertheless, nor, thus, unless, unlike, whether, owing

determiners

all, any, little, no, an, a, enough, every, his, its, our, their, another, few, much, such, the

auxiliary verbs

had, would, be, did, has, have, is, must, will, been, being, can, could, does, may, might, should, was, becoming, getting

reference words

this, it, one, them, themselves, there, these, others, us, everything, anything

relative pronouns

that, which, when, where, whose, who

question words

which, when, how, what

time expressions other than prepositions

yet, last, past, previous, just

Ask about words above you aren’t sure about, then discuss differences between these:

• at/ in
• in/ into
• as/ like
• by/ until
• ago/ before
• because/ so
• although/ but
• although/ despite
• during/ while
• during/ for
• for/ since
• all/ every
• few/ little
• any/ some
• a/ the
• it’s/ its
• another/ other
• so/ such
• will/ would
• it/ this
• them/ themselves
• anything/ everything
• that/ which
• what/ which

 

Do a real exam task, first with no help and then seeing if the words on the cards fit.