The English Language - Answer Sheet

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English Today

Cambridge Advanced (CAE) Use of English Practice

This exercise gives you practice in the cloze exercises where you have to
modify words to complete the text. Complete the gaps using the correct
form of the word given in the box on the right.

The number of languages 1)

spoken

in the world has been falling in

modern times, and the pace may be 2)

accelerating

. However, the

spread of 3)

global

English is not directly causing smaller languages

to become 4)

endangered

. The downward trend in language 5)

diversity

began before English started its 6)

rise

as an international

lingua franca. In fact, English has a 7)

greater

impact on bigger

national languages than smaller languages.

Though exact figures are 8)

unavailable

, estimates suggest that there

are around 7,000 today. However, these are distributed 9)

unevenly

,

the top 12 languages 10)

accounting

for half of the world’s

population.

While the 11)

majority

of the world’s languages are spoken by small

12)

numbers

of speakers, most of the biggest languages, including

Chinese, English and large European languages, are spoken as first

languages by a 13)

declining

proportion of the world population.

1) Speak

2) Accelerate

3) Globe

4) Danger

5) Diverse

6) Rise

7) Great

8) Available

9) Even

10) Account

11) Major

12) Number

13) Decline