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Use of English

Level C2

Part 2 - Open Cloze

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

Supply Chain Fragility

In discussions of a supposedly post-scarcity economy, global supply chains are often presented as systems of near-perfect efficiency, (0) WITH shortages treated as temporary anomalies rather than structural warnings. Yet recent disruptions have shown just how fragile these networks can be, many links (1) .......... which remain invisible to consumers until they fail. In the wake (2) .......... port closures, sanctions and extreme weather, firms have discovered that resilience does not arise automatically from scale. Executives (3) .......... insist that diversification matters, but such claims ring hollow when procurement decisions are made at the behest (4) .......... short-term cost targets alone. What makes the situation worse is that inventories once regarded as wasteful (5) .......... in fact provide a buffer against shocks. So dependent have manufacturers become on just-in-time delivery (6) .......... even minor delays can halt production altogether. Some analysts argue that the system will recover by itself; others maintain that, unless governments and firms rethink their assumptions, the next crisis will expose weaknesses, many (7) .......... have been building for years. The lesson is not that abundance is impossible, but that abundance, if it is to endure, (8) .......... require structures designed for strain as well as speed.

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

Thanasis Kalpaktsis

@thanasis-kalpaktsis

User Prompt

"Create an exercise about the fragility of global supply chains in a post-scarcity economy. Target: partitive relatives (of which), emphatic 'do', and fixed idioms like 'in the wake of' or 'at the behest of'"

Tone: Professional
Level: C2

Created on:

May 2, 2026

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