CAE Use of English Part 1, Test 2 – Cold climate

Answers and explanations

1. B – perks. A perk is an advantage of some kind. ‘Perks’ can also often refer to things you get as a part of your employment contract, e.g. a company car or corporate accommodation. ‘Accolade’ means a reward or something similar to acknowledge one’s achievement – a word that does not fit the context at all and is meant to throw you off because you might now know it. The words ‘bonuses’ and ‘profits’ have somewhat similar meanings to ‘perks’, but do not work too well in this context.
2. A – through. If you make it through something, it means you go through a certain experience, especially one that is difficult or unpleasant.
3. B – resilient. Resilience is the quality or ability to remain strong and in high spirits despite difficulties or hardship. In this case, resilient species are the ones able to withstand harsh winter conditions. ‘Strongest’ could work here, but we cannot intensify it with ‘most’ as it is already in its superlative form. ‘Seasoned’ means experienced, which makes little sense in relation to animals – but you might feel tempted to go for it because winter is a season. ‘Resistant’ needs clarifying – resistant to what?
4. D – build. To build character means to make one emotionally and psychologically stronger, usually through exposure to difficulties that one has to overcome.
5. B – therefore. We need an introductory word that means ‘as a result’, as we use the previous idea as the reason in this sentence. ‘Hence’ can be used to the same effect, but we do not normally use it at the beginning of the sentence, nor separate it with a comma. Punctuation can be of great help in CAE Use of English Part 1.
6. D – throws. If life throws something at you, it means you don’t expect it to happen. ‘Presents’ and ‘gives’ work, but grammatically require certain alteration: ‘presents them with’ and ‘gives them’ respectively.
7. A – pronounced. A somewhat misleading adjective, here it has nothing to do with pronunciation. If something is pronounced, then it is clearly different from everything else, contrasting with the rest. Therefore, pronounced seasonality means distinct differences between the four seasons.
8. C – things. What we look for here is a set expression ‘all things considered’ that means ‘keeping everything in mind, taking everything into account’.