6 February 2025 · Shift 3

Idiom substitution The underlined part describes staying up and working long after bedtime, so the idiom must carry exactly that sense. 'Burn the midnight oil' = to work or study late into the night: He's been burning the midnight oil, trying to finish his thesis before the deadline. (a) 'Burn the candle at both ends' is the tempting choice, but it means to wear yourself out by being busy from very early morning till very late at night - it adds an early start the sentence never mentions. (b) 'Burn bridges' = to destroy a relationship or an option beyond repair; (c) 'burn the ships' = to cut off every chance of retreat. Hence the correct option is (d).

Word meaning 'Chuckle' is to laugh quietly or inwardly - a soft, half-suppressed laugh, often to oneself. (c) 'Laugh quietly without opening one's mouth' captures exactly that restraint, so it is the meaning asked for. (a) 'Laugh loudly' is a guffaw, and (b) 'laugh in a noisy, gleeful way' is a cackle or chortle - both are loud, the very opposite of a chuckle. (d) 'Cry like a donkey' is to bray; it is not a form of laughter at all. Hence the correct option is (c).

Spelling error Check each option letter by letter against its standard dictionary spelling. (d) 'Buisness' is wrong: the correct spelling is BUSINESS - it is built on 'busy' + '-ness', so the u comes before the s, not after the i. (a) Resource, (b) Apology and (c) Lecture are all spelt correctly as printed. Hence the incorrectly spelt word is (d).

Spelling in a sentence Test the long words of the sentence against their dictionary forms; the short ones rarely hide the error. 'Comprehensve' is missing a letter: the correct spelling is COMPREHENSIVE (comprehend + -ive), so the i must appear before the v. (b) Company's carries a correct possessive apostrophe, and (c) Benefits and (d) Policy are spelt correctly. Hence the correct option is (a).

Vocabulary in context The blank needs a present participle naming what the disciples do in front of the self-claimed god-men - an act that would anger the speaker. 'Prostrating' = lying face down with the arms stretched out, as an act of total submission or worship; 'prostrating before them' is exactly the blind surrender the speaker resents. (a) 'sleeping' and (c) 'swinging' describe ordinary physical acts with no element of worship, so neither explains the anger. (b) 'spitting' would be an insult, not devotion, and would give the sentence the opposite sense. Hence the correct option is (d).

Adverb usage error The question asks for an ADVERBIAL error, so first find the segment that actually contains an adverb: only 'David loudly' does. 'Loudly' is an adverb of manner describing sound. Opening a gift produces no sound worth reporting, so 'loudly' cannot modify 'opened' here; the sense the sentence needs is enthusiasm - David excitedly / eagerly opened the gift. Position confirms it: an adverb of manner normally stands after the verb or after the verb + object (He opened it eagerly), not wedged between the subject and the verb. (b) 'presented by' is a participle plus preposition, (c) 'opened the gift' is verb plus object and (d) 'his sister' is a noun phrase - none of the three contains an adverb, so none can carry an adverbial error. Hence the correct option is (a).

Error spotting: auxiliary verb Scan the verb phrase first: 'She been showing off' puts the past participle 'been' straight after the subject with no auxiliary in front of it. 'Been' can never stand alone - it must follow has / have / had (She has been showing off her juggling skills), or be replaced altogether by was (She was showing off ...). (a) 'showing off her', (b) 'juggling skills at' and (d) 'her friend's party' are all correct as they stand. Hence the segment with the error is (c).

Tense correction 'Last month' is a finished past time marker, and a finished time expression forces the simple past tense. The underlined 'are launching' is present continuous, which reports something happening now or fixed for the future, so it clashes head-on with 'last month'. Replacing it with 'launched' gives the correct sentence: They launched the new product last month. (b) 'was launching' fails on number - the plural subject 'They' would need 'were'; (d) 'did launched' doubles the past marker, since 'did' already carries the tense and the main verb must stay 'launch'; and (c) cannot be right because the sentence as printed is ungrammatical. Hence the correct option is (a).

Idiom meaning 'Fall between two stools' pictures someone trying to sit on two stools at once and landing on the floor - going for two things and getting neither. (a) 'Fail to achieve either of two aims' states exactly that outcome, so it is the meaning of the idiom. (b) is the tempting distractor, but confusion about which of two options to pick is only the state before choosing; the idiom names the failure that follows, not the hesitation. (c) merely translates the words literally into tripping over hurdles, and (d) reverses the sense by claiming success in both aims. E.g. He divided his time between his studies and his job and fell between two stools, excelling at neither. Hence the correct option is (a).

Prepositional verb The sentence means 'we can rely on Tim', so the blank needs the preposition fixed to the verb 'count' in that sense. 'Count on somebody' = to depend on or trust somebody to do something; hence 'we can count on Tim to resolve this for us'. (b) 'count for' means to be worth something (His opinion counts for a lot); (d) 'count in' means to include somebody (Count me in!); (a) 'count at' is not an English combination at all. Hence the correct option is (c).

Collocation and vocabulary The blank needs a plural noun that fits the frame 'taking frequent ___ at the map' - what a driver does again and again while retracing a route. 'Glance' = a quick, brief look; 'take a glance at something' is the fixed collocation, so 'taking frequent glances at the map' is right. (a) 'bounces' are rebounds of a ball, (c) 'winces' are small flinches of pain or embarrassment, and (d) 'fences' are barriers. None of those three can follow 'take ... at', which by itself rules them out even before meaning is considered. Hence the correct option is (b).

Synonym 'Precise' = exact, sharply defined, leaving no room for error. (c) 'Accurate' = completely correct and exact, so it is the closest synonym. (a) 'Vague' = not clear or definite, and (b) 'Ambiguous' = open to more than one interpretation; both are antonyms of 'precise', not synonyms. (d) 'Approximate' is the trap: it means close to the real value but not exact, which is the very opposite of precision. Hence the correct option is (c).

Antonym in context The blank must take the OPPOSITE of the bracketed word 'enlarge' (= to make bigger, to extend) and still make sense with 'the sale of illegal drugs'. (d) 'Curtail' = to cut back, reduce or restrict something; a new law naturally aims to curtail the sale of illegal drugs. (c) 'amplify' is the trap - it means to increase or intensify, which is a synonym of 'enlarge', so it goes the wrong way. (a) 'ridicule' = to mock, and (b) 'admire' = to regard with respect and pleasure; both name attitudes towards a thing and neither is opposite in meaning to 'enlarge'. Hence the correct option is (d).

Antonym 'Magnanimous' = big-hearted: generous, forgiving and above pettiness or revenge. (c) 'Degraded' = lowered in character or dignity, debased and mean-spirited - the quality farthest from a magnanimous nature, so it is the antonym here. (d) 'Generous' is the commonest trap in this item: it is a synonym of 'magnanimous', not its opposite. (b) 'Large' picks up only the Latin root magnus (great) and refers to physical size, while (a) 'Splendour' is a noun meaning grandeur and so cannot be the antonym of an adjective at all. Hence the correct option is (c).

Antonym 'Distraught' = deeply upset, distressed, beside oneself with worry or grief. (c) 'Happy' = feeling pleasure and contentment, which is the direct opposite of that state of mind, so it is the antonym. (a) 'Curved' = having a rounded shape, so it describes form, not feeling; (b) 'Sour' = sharp and acid in taste (or bad-tempered), which is a taste word, not a settled state of mind. (d) 'New' = recently made or discovered, a word about age; it names no emotion at all. Hence the correct option is (c).

Cloze: word choice The blank stands between 'computer programs' and 'to simulate conversations', so it needs a past participle saying what the programs were made for. 'Designed to do something' = created or planned for that very purpose: chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate conversations. (c) 'destroyed' would say the programs were wrecked, which cannot then be followed by a purpose, and (a) 'debarred' means shut out from something, taking 'from', not 'to'. (d) 'detailed' means described minutely; a program is not 'detailed to simulate' anything. Hence the correct option is (b).

Cloze: subjunctive after 'as if' 'As if' and 'as though' introduce an unreal, hypothetical comparison, and the verb that follows goes into the subjunctive past - 'were' for every subject, singular or plural. A chatbot is not human, so the comparison is contrary to fact: '...to simulate conversations as if they were another human'. (c) 'will' and (d) 'could' are modals and would have to be followed by a bare verb ('as if they could speak'), but no verb follows the blank here. (b) 'pretend' leaves 'as if they pretend another human' without the object or preposition the verb needs. Hence the correct option is (a).

Cloze: discourse marker The sentence opens with 'For ___' and then supplies an illustration - ten million Replika users - so the blank must complete a linking phrase, not name a thing. 'For example' is the standard marker used to introduce an instance of the statement just made, which is exactly what follows. (c) 'for entry' and (d) 'for exit' name purposes of movement and have nothing to introduce here. (b) 'eligible' is an adjective, and 'for eligible' is not even grammatical without a noun after it. Hence the correct option is (a).

Cloze: verb choice '...a chatbot billed as a companion who ___' needs a third-person singular verb to complete the relative clause introduced by 'who'. 'Cares' = feels concern and affection for someone; that is precisely what a product 'billed as a companion' is being sold on, and it leads straight into the next line, 'It acts like a friend'. (c) 'negates' means cancels out and (d) 'grows' means increases in size - neither says anything a companion could be advertised for. (b) 'blinks' is a physical act of the eyelids that a text-based chatbot cannot perform at all. Hence the correct option is (a).

Cloze: noun choice The blank is the thing that can be 'inappropriate' and that moderation would check, so it must be a noun naming what the application puts out. 'Content' = the material - text, pictures, messages - that an application generates or hosts; 'inappropriate content' is the standard collocation in this field. (a) 'console' is a control panel or a gaming machine, and (c) 'collage' is a picture made of pasted pieces; neither is something a chatbot produces for moderators to check. (b) 'corporate' is an adjective and cannot stand as the object of 'checks on'. Hence the correct option is (d).