For each question, choose the correct answer.
Walter Bonatti
Walter Bonatti, one of the greatest alpine mountain climbers of all time, was born in Italy in 1930. As a child, he (1)…………… his holidays in Bergamo with his uncles. He loved the mountains there, and at the age of 18, he (2)…………… to climb the highest and most difficult ones. He was one of the (3)…………… people to do this and he was very (4)…………… at it.
He went on to climb many other mountains, including the famous K2 in the Himalayas. At the age of just 35, he decided to (5)…………… his climbing career. However, he continued to work as a mountain guide and photographer. He also wrote several books about his climbing (6)……………, which are read in all Italian schools.
1 A travelled B went C spent
2 A became B began C turned
3 A early B first C soon
4 A successful B interested C popular
5 A shut B close C end
6 A experiences B occupations C subjects
Answer
1 The correct answer is C: ‘spent’ is the only option that has the correct meaning of spending time doing something. A and B are both incorrect as they don’t make sense with the words which follow the gap (‘his holidays’).
2 The correct answer is B: ‘began’ is the correct verb for this gap because Walter is saying that he started ‘to climb the highest and most difficult’ mountains in Bergamo. C is incorrect as the word ‘turned’ implies that Walter had his back to the mountain, which we don’t know. A is incorrect as it doesn’t ft the correct meaning for this gap.
3 The correct answer is B: ‘first’ is the best option for this gap as the text is saying that Walter ‘was one of the [first] people’ ‘to climb the highest and most difficult’ mountains in Bergamo. This means that not many people had achieved these climbs before. A and C are incorrect because, while they are similar in meaning to ‘first’, they don’t reflect the meaning of being ‘first’ at achieving something.
4 The correct answer is A: ‘successful’ is the best adjective to ft the meaning of this phrase. B is incorrect as it does not collocate with ‘at’ which follows the gap. C is also incorrect as ‘popular’ means ‘to be liked by many people’. This part of the sentence is describing how good (successful) Walter was at climbing challenging mountains rather than how popular or famous he was because of his climbing ability.
5 The correct answer is C: ‘end’ is the correct verb for this gap. After he stopped climbing extremely challenging mountains such as ‘K2 in the Himalayas’ he became ‘a mountain guide and photographer.’ Therefore, Walter has come to an end of his climbing career. A and B are incorrect because, although they are similar in meaning to ‘end’, they do not mean the same as ‘ending’ or ‘stopping’ a particular activity.
6 The correct answer is A: ‘experiences’ is the only noun that fts the meaning of this gap. The text is saying that Walter wrote about his range of climbing experiences in ‘several books’. B is incorrect as Walter only had one occupation where he actually climbed mountains, so the plural form of this noun does not work in the gap. C is also incorrect as it does not make sense in this gap because of the words that are before the gap (‘his climbing’).