Cambridge Advanced Certificate (CAE) Paper Three Use of English Part Two Cloze Usage
englishspeaker.com
English language study and
skills training on line

PART 2: CLOZE USAGE

Complete with one word only in each space.

THE ONE-EYED GAMESTER

In Britain, 98 per cent of households have at (01).............................. one television set and an average of 25 hours a week is spent in (02).............................. of it. 30 per cent of homes now have video machines, and the number is rising rapidly. This average of 25 hours a week is a staggering amount of time taken (03).............................. of people's lives.

(04).............................. do they watch? Mostly, it appears, game shows and soap opera, usually (05).............................. American origin. Game and quiz shows - (06).............................. is a difference between (07)..............................: games you stand up, quizzes you sit down - are immensely popular. They began in the United States in 1955 with The 64 Thousand Dollar Question, which enabled contestants to win big money (08).............................. answering complex questions. It became an overnight sensation, but three years later the bubble burst. Several contestants - the (09).............................. that lost - charged that popular quiz shows were rigged. The scandal shook the TV industry and forced the networks to kill (10).............................. the shows.

They were resurrected in 1961. They are still booming. There are 21 game shows flourishing (11).............................. American networks, the biggest and latest being Chance of a Lifetime in which contestants can win a million dollars. (12).............................. is these big money shows that draw the big audiences, and thus the advertising sponsors. For the networks, it's cheap. A programming manager for CBS says, "It costs around $100,000 to put (13).............................. a show, and efficient producers can shoot five programmes, or a week's worth of programmes, in one day. Afternoon soaps cost twice or three (14).............................. as much to produce and you can only tape one half-hour segment a day. So it boils (15).............................. to economics."

©English Teaching Systems February 2005