C1 Advanced · Use of English · Module 1, Lesson 2

Part 2: Open Cloze

Eight gaps, no options this time — you write the word yourself. Every gap is a grammar word, and the surrounding sentence, often quite dense at C1, fixes exactly one correct answer.

8 gaps 1 mark each 8–10 min target one word per gap
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What this part really tests

Part 2 checks whether you control the small "grammar words" that hold a complex English sentence together — articles, prepositions, relative pronouns, auxiliaries, comparatives, linkers, pronouns, and quantifiers. At C1, sentences are longer and denser, so tracking exactly what a gap refers back to becomes the real skill.

The examiner's method

  1. Read the whole text first to follow its overall argument before filling anything in.
  2. At each gap, decide the word class you need from its position: article? preposition? pronoun? linker?
  3. Check both sides of the gap. Grammar words are usually fixed by a pattern elsewhere in the sentence — a relative clause, a comparative "than", a fixed preposition after a verb or adjective.
  4. Write exactly one word. Never two words, and never leave a gap empty.
  5. Re-read the completed sentence to check it sounds natural and grammatically whole.

The eight gap categories

Articles / determiners
a, an, the, this, that
Prepositions
of, in, on, at, to, for, with
Relatives
who, which, that, whose, where
Auxiliaries / modals
has, would, should, could, been
Comparatives
than, as, more, less
Linkers
but, so, unless, however, whereas
Pronouns
it, they, them, these, one
Quantifiers
some, any, many, much, most, few

Worked example

Governments around the world are under growing pressure to treat climate change as ___ urgent priority rather than a distant concern.
  1. The gap sits directly before a singular countable noun phrase: "___ urgent priority".
  2. That means an indefinite article is needed, not "the" (no specific priority has been mentioned yet).
  3. "Urgent" begins with a vowel sound, so the article must be "an", not "a".
  4. Answer: an.
Try

Micro-trainer — one gap per category

Eight short sentences, each testing one of the eight categories above. Type your answer and press Check.

Try score: 0 / 8
Ready for the real thing? Scroll down to Apply — a brand new 8-gap passage in full exam format, against the clock.
Apply

Exam-format practice

A new 8-gap passage, official Part 2 format. Aim to finish before the timer runs out — then check your answers below.

10:00

Turning the Tide on Ocean Plastic

For much of the past two decades, the sheer scale of ocean plastic pollution (1) seemed like an intractable problem, with clean-up efforts barely making a dent in the estimated millions of tonnes entering the oceans each year. Recently, however, a wave of biodegradable materials has begun to change (2) calculation.

Researchers at several universities have developed plastics that break down within months rather than centuries, (3) has prompted growing interest from manufacturers eager to reduce their environmental footprint. There are now dozens of such alternatives on the market, many (4) which would have required industrial composting facilities that few municipalities actually possess.

Even so, some scientists caution that biodegradable plastic is not automatically (5) environmentally friendly than the packaging it replaces, since production methods and raw materials vary considerably between manufacturers. There is also concern that (6) consumers fully understand what the term "biodegradable" actually means in practice.

Despite these concerns, most experts agree that continued investment in the field is worthwhile; (7) governments and private companies increase funding significantly, meaningful progress on ocean plastic will remain slow. Meanwhile, several coastal nations have already begun piloting new waste-collection systems, hoping (8) will complement, rather than replace, the shift toward genuinely biodegradable materials.

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