Free Exercises: Cambridge ESOL Exercises
Exam: FCE CAE CPE
Exercise: Multiple Choice Cloze Open Cloze Word Formation Keyword Transformation
FCE Mulitlple Choice Cloze: Agatha Christie
For questions 1-12, read the text below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap. There is an example at the beginning (0).
Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet below.
Example
| 0 | A decidedly | B decisively | C arguably | D totally |
|---|
| 0 |
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For many people, Agatha Christie is (0) one of the best and most important 20th Century British authors. She is not only the (1) best-selling writer in the crime and mystery (2) , but her collected books have also outsold every other book worldwide, apart from the Bible. For modern readers, each of her books offers a (3) drama, full of details of a past era along with the challenge of a first-rate (4) that will keep you guessing until the final chapter.
There are many (5) that combine to make Agatha Christie's novels so successful. Most of the novels contain one or more murders but usually we first learn that the first victim is a(n) (6) and difficult person, a thoroughly nasty piece of (7) , with whom we have little sympathy. A few chapters later, there is a new murder of another victim who the writer has skilfully (8) as the person we think is really the murderer. In the final chapter, the true murderer is finally unmasked, usually coming as a total surprise to most readers. Poison often (9) a role in Christie's novels, which the writer probably learned about when she was nurse during the First World War.
Despite her popularity, many critics are less impressed with Christie's writing. They often describe her books as (10) forgettable airport fiction which may be good enough to (11) the time during a long journey but they (12) refuse to consider them alongside literary writers like Dickens and Shakespeare.
There are many (5) that combine to make Agatha Christie's novels so successful. Most of the novels contain one or more murders but usually we first learn that the first victim is a(n) (6) and difficult person, a thoroughly nasty piece of (7) , with whom we have little sympathy. A few chapters later, there is a new murder of another victim who the writer has skilfully (8) as the person we think is really the murderer. In the final chapter, the true murderer is finally unmasked, usually coming as a total surprise to most readers. Poison often (9) a role in Christie's novels, which the writer probably learned about when she was nurse during the First World War.
Despite her popularity, many critics are less impressed with Christie's writing. They often describe her books as (10) forgettable airport fiction which may be good enough to (11) the time during a long journey but they (12) refuse to consider them alongside literary writers like Dickens and Shakespeare.