ZHAW Proficiency XII

It is understandable that many people dislike change, but it is ____ to condemn all linguistic ____ . It is often felt that contemporary language illustrates the problem at its worst, but this belief is shared by every generation.

WISE, MODIFY
 

There are indeed cases where linguistic change can lead to problems of unintelligibility and ____  , and if change is too rapid there can be major communication problems.

AMBIGUOUS
 

But as a rule, the parts of language which are ____  change at any given time are relatively small in comparison to the vast, unchanging areas of language.

GO
 

It is because change is so ____ that it is so distinctive and ____ .
 

FREQUENT, NOTICE
 

Some degree of caution and concern is therefore always desirable for the ____ of precision and ____ communication, but there are no grounds for the extremely pessimistic attitudes so often encountered.

MAINTAIN, EFFECT
 

The fountain pen is still.a very attractive and ____ object, even in these days of cheap, ____ ball-point and felt-tip pens.
 

PRACTICE, DISPOSE
 

Few owners are ____ to it. Emotions range from a casual attraction to absolute passion.
However, though the reasons for such profound ____ to the pen are many, the way people feel is universal.
 

DIFFER, ATTACH
 

What exactly is it then about this small ___  object that provokes such ___  of feeling?

CYLINDER, INTENSE
 

The most likely answer to this question is that ___ the fountain pen is far more than a mere writing instrument.

BASE
 

It is often seen as an ___ of the owner’s social standing.
 

ASSERT
 

For some, the ornamentation is where its ___  attraction lies. It can be adorned with gold, with diamonds or inlaid with floral or geometric designs.
 

DOUBT
 

A fountain pen should only be loaned out in ___  circumstances, since in no timeat all it will be altered by the second user‘s hand.

EXCEPT
 

This is one of the ___ characteristics of the instrument, which makes each one uniqueand personal to its owner.

DISTINCT
 

According to research by ____ one can learn a great deal about the state of people’s relationships by watching how they say goodbye at airports.
 
PSYCHOLOGY
 

However, it seems that it is not ____  those in the strongest relationships who make the greatest display of ____  at parting.

NECESSARY, RELUCTANT
 

Such behaviour is more ____ of couples who have been together for a relatively short period of time.

CHARACTER
 

There is less ____ of people in long-term relationships showing strong feelings of dependency.
 

LIKELY
 

This may seem surprising but it is ____ because the people have been successful in establishing stability in their relationship and are able to see the separation as brief and of no great ____.
 

PRESUME, SIGNIFY
 

The expression of emotion at these moments may often reflect ____ and also the feeling that the person leaving is not fully ____ of just how important the relationship ls to the person being left.

SECURE, APPRECIATE
 

The person leaving may also seem ____ of how unsettling a separation can be for the person left behind, who may then experience a very real sense of ____ .

AWARE, LONELY
 

Like any form of ____, the self-taught course has its advantages as well as its ____.

EDUCATE, DRAW
 

On the one hand, you are ____; no classroom, no timetable and so no risk of getting a bad ____ record. You are able to study at your own pace; at home, in the car or wherever your Walkman takes you.

AUTONOMY, ATTEND
 

On the other hand, can you really trust yourself to be ____ motivated without some form of external stimulus?

SUFFICE
 

I procrastinated ____ before beginning my first Spanish course.

DREAD
 

I made coffee, did domestic chores that were anything but ____; I even watched daytime television.
 

PRESS
 

But, once l got started, I found the course surprisingly engaging. The multimedia formats, colourful textbooks and ____ teaching methods all drew me into the excitement of learning a new language.

IMAGINE
 

Of course, if youraim is ____ in the language, nothing can beat actually going to the country concerned.

EXPERT
 

Round-the-clock ____ is clearly always going to be more effective than the odd half hour with a set of tapes.

IMMERSE
 

But that odd half hour will give you an ____ head start when you step out onto the streets.

VALUE
 

When it rains, it doesn’t always pour. During atypical storm, ____ small amount of the locked up moisture in each cloud reaches the ground as rain.

COMPARE
 

So the idea that human ____ - a rain dance, perhaps - might encourage the sky to give up a little ____ water has been around since prehistoric times.

INTERVENE, ADD
 

More recently, would-be rain makers have used a more direct ____  that of throwing various chemicals out of aeroplanes in an effort to wring more rain from the clouds, a practice known as ‘cloud seeding’.

PROCEED
 

Yet such techniques, which were first developed in the 1940s, are ____ difficultto evaluate.

NOTORIETY
 

It is hard to ____, for example, how much rain would have fallen anyway.

CERTAIN

So, despite much anecdotal evidence of the advantages of cloud seeding, which has led to its adoption in more than 40 countries around the world, as far as scientists are concerned, results are still ____. That could be about to change.

CONCLUSIVE
 

For the past three years ____  have been carrying out the most extensive and ____  evaluation to date of a revolutionary new technique which will substantially boost the volume of ____.

RESEARCH, RIGOUR, RAIN
 

The preliminary ____  of their experiments indicate that solid evidence of the techniques effectiveness is now within the scientists’ grasp.

FIND
 

Until ____  recent times science and technology performed different and separate functions, the progress of one so often completely____  to the progress of the other.

COMPARE, RELATE
 

____ have established that, since the earliest times, the improvements in our way of life have resulted from an empirical approach, that is a process of trial and error, by which equipment and tools are made to satisfy important needs.

HISTORY
 

It is to this approach that we owe the evolution of technology. Our modern concept of science, both ____ and pragmatic in approach, stems from the seventeenth century, when extensive investigations into the natural laws governing the behaviour of matter were ____.

PHILOSOPHY, TAKE