FCE Use of English Part 1, Sleep

Answers and explanations

1. D – long-term. ‘Long-term’ memory is the type of memory that holds information that we have accumulated over the years of our lives. The only other adjective that collocates with memory here is ‘lasting’. A lasting memory is one that we have for a long time for some reason, e.g. if it is particularly unusual or enjoyable.
2. A – enabling. To enable is to give someone or something the power, ability or right to do something. ‘Forcing’ is making something happen by applying force. ‘Suggesting’ is giving a hint or proposing something. ‘Activating’ is making something active.
3. C – mental. The perfect partner for the word ‘physical’ here. ‘Intellectual’ and ‘thinking’ do not collocate well with ‘performance’. ‘Brain performance’ is a good collocation, but ‘mental’ is the preferable choice because of the physical-mental pair.
4. A – experienced. You don’t try or attempt to have sleep deprivation; it is a condition that is associated with insufficient sleep. This means that you can try not to sleep. It is the same as trying ‘hunger’ – it does not sound right. You can try to stop eating and have hunger as a result. ‘Got’ is grammatically incorrect, it could work with ‘had’ in Past Perfect though: ‘… most of us have had it at some point’.
5. A – irregular. Not regular, constantly changing. A schedule cannot be abrupt. ‘Random’ has a pretty similar meaning to ‘irregular’, but has the opposite idea of ‘schedule’ and for that reason is not really used with it. The idea of schedule is to have something happen at a particular time, and randomness means absence of any order or system. ‘Planned’ is wrong as it is a good thing that would not upset your quality of sleep.
6. C – quality. ‘Quality of life’ is a common phrase that you should be familiar with at an Upper-Intermediate level.
7. B – surrounded. The preposition after the gap helps us to eliminate option A: ‘associated WITH’. ‘Connected by’ and ‘bound by’ do not fit contextually.
8. D – future. The issue here can be not knowing the word ‘to foresee’, which means to predict or to see before it happens. We are then left with ‘D – future’ and ‘C – tomorrow’. The second option is incorrect as it should be used without a definite article.