Use of English

Level C2

Part 2 - Open Cloze

Exercises Feed

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For questions 1-8, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap.

Star-Crossed Lovers

Few stories have endured (0) AS powerfully as Shakespeare’s tale of Romeo and Juliet, in which love is kindled almost instantly and yet is hemmed in by forces beyond the lovers’ control. Their first meeting is framed not merely as chance, but as fate: a masked ball, a fleeting glance, and a conversation that seems to borrow its certainty (1) .......... prayer. What follows is a courtship conducted in whispers and shadows, (2) .......... the night itself conspires to shelter what daylight would condemn. Yet the play’s romance is never naïve. It insists (3) .......... the lovers’ sincerity while showing how fragile sincerity becomes when set against pride, reputation, and inherited grievance. The balcony scene, for all its sweetness, is also a negotiation with danger: Juliet speaks (4) .......... if she can trust language to remake the world, and Romeo answers as if words were vows. Their secrecy, however, is not simply youthful recklessness; it is the only space (5) .......... which their affection can breathe. By the time the final plan is set in motion, the audience knows that miscommunication will do (6) .......... the feud could not: turn devotion into catastrophe. And still, the tragedy leaves (7) .......... behind a stubborn consolation—that love, though brief, can be so complete that it outlasts the hatred (8) .......... tried to silence it.

What to do

This part consists of a short text with a series of gaps. There are no words from which to choose the answers, candidates have to think of a word which fits the gap correctly.

Errors in punctuation are ignored, although spelling must be correct.

Contractions (e.g. don’t, we’ve, won’t) count as two words. However, can’t is a contraction of cannot, which is one word.

Sometimes, there is more than one correct answer. Cambridge will always account for this and all options will be accepted. However, you should not write more than one answer.

Don't spend time in a word you don't know. Wasting time on this activity might cost you points later in the exam because you won’t have enough time to do other tasks well.

Strategy

  1. Read the title and the whole text so that you understand what it is about.
  2. Read the whole sentence in which the gap occurs, to look for clues as to what kind of word you need.
  3. Check the words before and after each gap and look for grammatical collocations.
  4. Remember you must write only one word.
  5. You are never required to write a contraction. If you think the answer is a contraction, it must be wrong, so think again.
  6. Read the whole text through once you have completed it to make sure you have not missed any connectors, plurals or negatives.

Instructions

For questions 1-8, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap.

Exercise Details

Author

James Ford

@james-ford

User Prompt

"Create a C2 Proficiency-level exercise about Romeo and Juliet."

Tone: Romantic
Level: C2

Created on:

Mar 14, 2026

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