CAE Use of English Part 1, Test 6 – Columbus day

Answers and explanations

1. C – alike. The position of the gap in the sentence is what dictates the choice in this first gap. ‘Alike’ is the only adverb here than can be put in that position. ‘Both’ could work like this: ‘… it is celebrated both in north and south Americas’. ‘Similarly’ has a different meaning, focusing on the way it is celebrated, rather than the fact of the celebration taking place. We don’t want to choose this as there is no immediate context that talks about how celebrations take place.
2. D – observed. If a holiday is observed, it means that it is celebrated, and in this context, it also means that the institution that observes it has different (shortened) business hours on that occasion. Traditions can be upheld. People can be honoured.
3. C – altogether. The meaning is similar to ‘completely’, but we cannot choose this word as we don’t want to put it at the end of the sentence. ‘Entirely’ can work in this position, but the meaning is that all of the institution (rather than a certain part of it) is closed, which makes little sense in the context.
4. B – basis. When something is done on a certain basis, it is done so following some system or set of rules, e.g. ‘employees of this company are paid on the basis of their performance as to promote productivity and eliminate unnecessary waste’. No rule or regulation is implied by the context.
5. A – varies. If something varies, it comes in different variations. Here we give examples of how celebrations can take different forms. To differ means to be different from something else. ‘Shifts’ and ‘transforms’, if used here, would mean starting with one form of celebration and then moving on to another.
6. B – discovered. Discovery is finding something for the first time. Exploration as the term focuses on extensive travel, research with the aim of learning more about the subject. ‘Opened’ is a direct translation from some other languages. Traversing means going across some vast piece of land or sea.
7. A – however. Punctuation here makes all the difference. We need a way to connect two contrasting ideas here – both ‘however’ and ‘although’ work. The problem is that ‘although’ is not normally surrounded by commas. Instead, a comma is needed before this word only. ‘Conversely’ means ‘on the other hand’ or introduces a completely different (not a contrasting) idea, e.g. ‘Cars are expensive and dangerous, while bicycles, conversely, are affordable and much safer’.
8. D – associated. The difficulty of choosing between ‘connected’ and ‘associated’ is understandable. However, the adverb ‘increasingly’ helps us greatly – people associate the holiday with sad events more and more. On the other hand, the holiday itself cannot get more (or less) connected to what happened in the past. The remaining two options do not fit contextually.