B2 Use of English Test 8 – multiple choice gaps

The importance of science

The aim of science is to (1)…………… out how the world and everything in it, and beyond it, works. Some people, though, (2)…………… that much of what is done in the name of science is a waste of time and money. What is the (3)…………… in investigating how atoms behave or in studying stars billions of kilometres away? Science, they argue, is of (4)…………… only if it has some practical use.

When the Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell (5)…………… experiments with electricity and magnetism in the late 19th century, he had no particular end in (6)…………… and was certainly not (7)…………… to make money; he was simply trying to reveal more about how the world works. And yet his work laid the (8)…………… for our modern way of life. Computers, the internet, satellites, mobile phones, televisions, medical scanners all owe their existence to the fact that a scientist (9)…………… the need to understand the world a little better.

1   A   open                 B   think                 C   find                  D   look

2   A   claim                 B   demand            C   tell                   D   review

3   A   basis                 B   cause                C   point               D   sake

4   A   gain                   B   profit                C   advantage      D   value

5   A   brought on      B   carried out       C   pulled out      D   set off

6   A   plan                   B   idea                   C   mind               D   thought

7   A   reaching           B   aiming              C   targeting        D   designing

8   A   sources            B   origins              C   structures      D   foundations

9   A   held                  B   felt                    C   chose              D   used