FCE Use of English Part 1, The Wonder Fruit

Answers and explanations

1. D – public. ‘General public’ is the only strong collocation of the four. Collocations are combinations of words that work together, i.e. ‘fast food’ is a collocation whereas ‘quick food’ is not.
2. A – favourite. We are talking about preferences here—what people like and what they don’t. ‘Best’ would mean a more objective answer—something that a person believes to be better in general. ‘Loved’ could work in combination with ‘most’, e.g. ‘most loved fruit’. ‘Chosen’ does not collocate in this context.
3. C – benefits. ‘Health benefits’ is the most common combination. ‘Profits’ and ‘bonuses’ are more widely used in the context of money and finances.
4. C – rich. The key to answering this is paying attention to the the preposition ‘in’. To be rich in something means to have a lot of it. ‘Useful in’ and ‘influential in’ have more direct meanings.
5. A – value. Nutritional value is how rich any food is in vitamins and elements as well as how filling it is.
6. D – lose. To lose weight should be a well-known combination of words. The opposite is ‘to gain weight’. To decrease or lower weight are more technical combinations, not normally used in relation to human body.
7. C – on. To keep something on is not to get rid of it, to keep it the way it is. To keep away or to keep out both mean staying far from something.
8. B – treat. Treating yourself to something means allowing yourself to have something that you like as a reward or for pleasure. Both ‘heal’ and ‘cure’ have medicinal meanings. ‘Aid’ in this combination would mean ‘help, assist’.