Paragraph Completion Advanced Level Test – Quiz (Online Exercise With Answers) 1

The degree to which children feel more self-confident as they grow older depends mainly on their relation with their mothers and fathers. Children always need to be reassured by their parents. _____. This kind of trust is essential in reducing young children's anxiety.

Ocean waves may seem like a fanciful source of energy. _____. In August, a 750-kilowatt power plant off the coast of Scotland began delivering ocean - wave power for the first time to the local electricity grid. The plant consists of four linked floating cylinders which use wave motion to drive a hydraulic pump and turn a turbine. This is such an inexpensive and clean process that engineers are quite optimistic about its future.

It's essential for all creatures to keep themselves clean and free from parasites. _____. Some species are able to clean themselves. For those species that are not, it is obviously vital to find some other animal to perform this cleaning function.

_____. Within five years, 4,5 million Americans had taken it at least once. This was the fastest acceptance ever for a psychiatric drug. It seemed to go beyond treating illness and actually improve people's lives; a sort of facelift for the character. However, reports emerged that some patients actually felt more suicidal on Prozac.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, which at the time was not the Capital of Russia. Dostoevsky's mother died when he was sixteen and he became a student in the Military Engineering School in the then-capital, St. Petersburg. _______. And therefore, resigned from his commission after just over a year. In later years, he became a radical socialist and, after having written two novels and some other shorter works, was arrested in 1848 and sentenced to death for his political activities.

A virus can be regarded as a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents in computer technology. ______. Extending this comparison, the insertion of the virus into a program is termed “infection”, and the infected document or code is known as a “host”.

_____. In Western medicine, all the ingredients are single compounds, making it much easier to quality control, and the mode of function can be analyzed. In Chinese medicine, however, because it is a mixture that is used, it is very difficult to investigate how it works. One of the ways that pharmaceutical companies are looking at bringing traditional Chinese medicine into line with Western Standards is to identify the active ingredients in the herbs that are used.

The olive is possibly the most important fruit of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern region so much that according to Greek mythology, it helped to give Athens its name. This was because when the gods Poseidon and Athena clashed over whose name the city would get, it was decided that the honour would go to the one who could offer the most precious gift to it. _____. The olive even gets important mentions in the religious books of the area. According to the Bible, after Noah's Ark is left high and stranded on a mountain, he sent out a dove, and when it returned with an olive leaf in its mouth, Noah knew that God's wrath had passed.

Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires on 24 August 1899. His father was a lawyer, a psychology teacher, and an anarchist who was part of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and British, while his mother was a translator of Spanish and Catalan descent. At his home, both Spanish and English were spoken. _____. And in fact, he learned to read in English before Spanish. He grew up in a suburb of Buenos Aires called Palermo, in a large house with a comprehensive library, for which he began writing stories at the age of 6.

The author Alfred Jarry is best known for his play King Ubu, in which the title character is a gross satire on bourgeois stupidity and greed. In fact, the character became so famous at the time that Jarry himself often pretended he was Ubu, especially in his later years. _____. He was, for example, the inventor of an “imaginary science” known as “pataphysics” and he also wrote an essay about a time travel machine.

Lichens are one of the few kinds of life that can survive in the mountains of Antarctica. These tiny plants live in small holes in the rocks. Outside, the extreme cold and strong winds do not allow any life at all. _____. However, much of the time they are frozen. This fact means that the lichen function very slowly, and live a very long time.

Sociologists and psychologists have argued for centuries about how a person's character is formed. The argument has long been known as “Nature versus Nurture”, for the two main opposing theories. The first theory says that character is formed genetically before birth. _____. The other theory says, on the contrary, that a person's character is formed after birth.

Money has not always been made of metal or paper. In many parts of the world, people have used other materials. Precious stones, valuable cloth (silk), and rare spices (saffron) have all been used as money at times. But people have also given special value to other kinds of objects. For example, in Ethiopia, blocks of salt have been used as money. _____. In India and in North America, special kinds of shells have been used

_____. This expression can be true in a very literal sense. The Luo people from Kenya often cook and eat the leaves of a plant called black nightshade. This plant serves as an effective treatment for many stomach problems. The Luo eat it regularly from childhood and do not suffer any negative effect from it. However, when one American researcher ate just a small amount, she felt quite ill afterwards. In fact, the plant contains a substance called solanine that can be poisonous.

Supermarket managers have all kinds of tricks to encourage people to spend more money. Their aim is to make customers go more slowly through the supermarket. _____. They also make the corridors near the cash registers more narrow. Then customers with large shopping carts will get stuck or have to slow down. In some supermarkets, the floor is even slightly uphill for people going towards the exits.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a basketball star in the United States. When he was born in New York City in 1947, his parents named him Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr. He studied at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in the late 1960s. At that time, he led the university's basketball team to three championships. _____. He changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In 1969, Kareem began his professional basketball career as a centre on the Milwaukee Bucks team. Later, in 1975, he joined the Los Angeles Lakers.

Making orange juice concentrate from fresh oranges is done entirely by machines. First, oranges are dumped onto a moving belt. They travel into a machine that washes them with detergent. Next, they are rolled into juicing machines, where seven hundred oranges per minute are split and squeezed. Then, the rinds are thrown out the end of a long tube. _____. Next, the juice goes into another machine called the finisher. And the process is over.

_____. Some people like to go for long walks in the forest, where they won't see anyone for days. Others prefer to spend their holiday in an exciting city. There they can visit museums, theaters, and good restaurants. Still others enjoy the fresh air at the seashore. They can spend their days at the beach and listen to the ocean waves at night.

Scientists believe that the earth's climate may be warming up. This trend probably began thousands of years ago. Many areas of the earth used to be covered with ice that has now melted. _____. Scientists think that part of the reason for this may be carbon dioxide pollution from industry and automobiles. The carbon dioxide mixes with other gases. This pollution covers the earth like a blanket and keeps it warmer. Another reason for the warming may be the fact that the earth is losing its forests.

The first guitarist to become known worldwide was Andres Segovia, born in 1893 in Spain. _____. Most people thought that the guitar was suitable only for popular music or folk music. Few classical composers wrote music for the guitar, and it was never included in classical concerts. But Segovia classical instrument, and he was a great musician.

Many studies have shown that it is better to wear your seat belt when you are travelling in a car. Seat belts greatly reduce the risk of death or injury in an accident. This fact is widely recognized and many governments have passed laws requiring seat belt use. _____. Researchers have found several reasons for this. Some people feel uncomfortable with the seat belt. They are afraid of being trapped in the car in an accident. Others do not think that the seat belt can protect them. They believe that people have no power over their fate.

_____. The main cause of this is loneliness. In the past, older people usually lived with other members of the family. They usually had responsibilities around the home. For example, older women could help take care of the children. And older men could help their sons at work. These days, married children often prefer to live on their own, sometimes ^ far away from their parents. Thus, m older people may be cut off from p family ties. They may feel cut off from g the world around them.

In the past few years, scientists have found several new fuels to replace gasoline for automobiles. _____. It can be used in many cars in almost the same way that gasoline is used. Natural gas is another alternative fuel for cars. However, cars that burn this fuel must be equipped with special tanks of natural gas. A third alternative, and perhaps the best, is electricity. Cars fueled by electricity have no engine at all, though they do have to carry large batteries.

Both New York City and Paris depend on vast subway lines to transport their millions of commuters. In both cities, the subways are often crowded, especially at rush hours. Another likeness is the terrible noise level in the trains. A further similarity is that two subway systems both cover a wide area at little expense for commuters. However, the differences between the two are quite striking. _____. Many of the French stations are filled with works of art. In Paris, the subway trains are clean. On the other hand, New York's trains can sometimes be less clean.

When people move from one city or country to another, the spread of diseases may result. People often bring in germs that may not have been present there before. These new germs can spread quickly and cause previously unknown diseases. _____. They become ill more easily and die more often. In turn, newcomers may catch diseases that were not present where they came from.