Happy New Year to our CISL students! Do you have a resolution for 2016 to improve your English skills? If so, we have the perfect lesson to implement your new resolution: practice CAE and FCE Use of English Part II with these quotes about the New Year!

Before you begin, make sure that you understand Use of English Part II of the Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English and First Certificate. In this part of the test, you have sentences with missing words. Sometimes the words are part of a fixed expression, a collocation, a phrasal verb, or an idiom. Sometimes, they are simply a word that grammatically fits with the sentence. Here is an example:

Example: I ate way ___ many cookies.

Answer: I are way [TOO] many cookies.

Click here to learn more about Part II of the Use of English Module of the exams.

Once you understand the format, try to complete the blanks in the quotes below. Remember that only one word can complete the sentences. Good luck!

Cambridge CAE and FCE Use of English Part II Practice

1. What I like to drink most is wine _____ belongs to others. ~Diogenes
2. I never worry about being driven ______ drink; I just worry about being driven home. ~ W. C. Fields
3. Celebrate what you see more of. ~Tom Peters
4. New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take _____ more of my time. ~James Agate
5.  Year’s end is neither an end _____ a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland

Answers

1. What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others. ~Diogenes
   1. Explanation: This quote tests your ability to understand Relative Clauses. Do you think the answer could also be the word which? Ask your CISL teacher if you don’t understand when to use that/which in Relative Clauses, and click here to learn more about this grammar construction. 
2. I never worry about being driven to drink; I just worry about being driven home. ~ W. C. Fields
   1. Explanation: “To be driven to do something” means that something causes you to do something. For example, someone can be “driven to insanity” by a loud neighbor: the neighbor causes the person to become “insane.” You must understand this expression in order to choose the correct preposition (or, you must have properly guessed that the preposition “to” comes after the word “driven!”). Do you understand the joke being made in this quote? If not, ask your CISL teacher to explain!
3. Celebrate what you see more of. ~Tom Peters
   1. Explanation: “To see more of something” is a common expression, but do you see how this construction is switched in the quote so that the word “of” is at the end of the sentence? These little tricks are common in the Cambridge ESOL exams and are there to confuse you a little. Seeing that there are two “parts” to figuring out this answer will help you work through the problem!
4. New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. ~James Agate
   1. Explanation: This quote uses the phrasal verb “to take up,” which has MANY definitions. In this case, the definition that is being used is “to use.” For example, “Studying for exams takes up most of my free hours.” Click here for more the many meanings of the phrasal verb TAKE UP. 
5.  Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland
   1. Explanation: The word “nor” is not incredibly common in spoken English, but it is used fairly often in written and formal English. Here, it is used as part of the construction “neither . . . nor.” For example, “I like neither chocolate nor vanilla.” As with many questions in Part II of the Use of English exam, it is important to look not only at the words directly before and after the missing word, but it is also important to look at the entire sentence: the keys to the answer could be “hidden” within another part of a sentence.

For more information on CISL’s Cambridge ESOL preparation classes, click here.