Use of English - Open Cloze
C1
Cambridge English C1 Exam
For questions 1-8, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each gap. Click the gaps to type your answer.
Consumer Confidence
Consumer confidence is often described as a measure of how optimistic people feel (0) ABOUT the state of the economy and their own financial prospects. It tends to rise when employment is stable and inflation remains under control, conditions (1) .......... encourage households to spend rather than save excessively. Confidence can also be shaped (2) .......... headlines: if the media focuses on falling prices, factory closures or weak growth, people may become cautious even before such trends affect them directly. At the same time, confidence does not depend solely (3) .......... current income. Expectations about the future play an equally important role. If workers fear that interest rates will rise or that taxes may increase, they are less likely to commit (4) .......... major purchases. By contrast, when wages improve and borrowing remains affordable, consumers are more willing to take (5) .......... loans or spend on non-essential goods. Economists therefore pay close attention to confidence surveys, not because they predict behaviour perfectly, but because they often point (6) .......... changes in spending patterns before official data appears. A sudden drop in confidence may result (7) .......... reduced demand across several sectors. For that reason, governments and businesses alike monitor sentiment carefully in order to respond (8) .......... signs of weakening demand.
About Use of English Open Cloze — Cambridge English C1
In this Cambridge English C1 Use of English Open Cloze exercise you read a short text and think of the one word that best fits each of the 8 gaps.
Open Cloze tests grammar and common fixed expressions — articles, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs and linking words. Only one word goes in each gap, and it is usually a small grammatical word rather than vocabulary.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many gaps are in this C1 Open Cloze exercise?
There are 8 gaps, and you must write exactly one word in each.
What kind of words go in the gaps?
Usually grammatical words: prepositions, articles, pronouns, auxiliaries, relative pronouns and parts of fixed phrases.
What is the best strategy for Open Cloze?
Read the whole text first for meaning, then look closely at the words around each gap — the answer almost always depends on the immediate grammar.
Keep practising Cambridge English C1
Use of English at every level
More Cambridge English C1 skills
Cambridge English Exam Resources
More Cambridge English exam preparation tools from our family of apps:
Made with by Shining Apps
The best Cambridge English apps ever
What to do
This part consists of a short text with a series of gaps. There are no words from which to choose the answers, candidates have to think of a word which fits the gap correctly.
Errors in punctuation are ignored, although spelling must be correct.
Contractions (e.g. don’t, we’ve, won’t) count as two words. However, can’t is a contraction of cannot, which is one word.
Sometimes, there is more than one correct answer. Cambridge will always account for this and all options will be accepted. However, you should not write more than one answer.
Don't spend time in a word you don't know. Wasting time on this activity might cost you points later in the exam because you won’t have enough time to do other tasks well.
Strategy
- Read the title and the whole text so that you understand what it is about.
- Read the whole sentence in which the gap occurs, to look for clues as to what kind of word you need.
- Check the words before and after each gap and look for grammatical collocations.
- Remember you must write only one word.
- You are never required to write a contraction. If you think the answer is a contraction, it must be wrong, so think again.
- Read the whole text through once you have completed it to make sure you have not missed any connectors, plurals or negatives.