FCE Use of English Part 2, Purring Cats

Answers and explanations

9. to. To be limited to something means to have something as a restriction, e.g. ‘Your choice of foreign language courses here is limited to Spanish and Portuguese’. ‘Limited by’ is wrong, as this phrase means what the limiting factor is, e.g. ‘Job opportunities here are limited by the fact that we live in a small town’.
10. as. To act as something or someone means to perform the same function. ‘To act like’ is not optimal here because it usually means that it acts similarly, but not identically (not in exactly the same way).
11. with. In connection with something, not separately.
12. if/whether. Here we are trying to find out if cats show their love to the owner by purring. ‘Why’ fits grammatically, but the idea changes then and conflicts with the next sentence, that explains the idea – it provides details on how cats show their affection.
13. at.To point at something is to indicate or show that something is true.
14. such. Here we are introducing a list of examples with ‘such as’, similarly to ‘like’.
15. only. We have to use context here to understand what the author means – lions are the exception to the rule of purring cats. ‘Feline’ is an adjective that means ‘related to cats’ or ‘cat-like’, e.g. ‘feline grace’.
16. others. ‘Some’ and ‘others’ form a pair here and are contrasted against one another.