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Oxford CPE Entry Test Part 2
© Oxford University Press
PART 2
For questions 16–25, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines
to form a word that fits in the space in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0). Write your
answers in CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet.
Example:
0
REFERENCE
The DICTIONARY of NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY
Just over one hundred years ago, the last volume of a tremendous work of
(0) ………… entitled The Dictionary of National Biography rolled off
the printing presses. (16) ………… , this 21-volume shelf-filler may
not immediately sound like the most thrilling read in the world. As
entertainment, you might imagine it ranks some way below a
(17) ………… autobiography. But you would be very, very wrong.
The DNB, like the Oxford English Dictionary, is one of the great monuments to
British culture and also a hugely enjoyable work in its own right. It is, quite simply,
an (18)
………… dictionary of potted biographies of all the notable men and
women who had lived in Britain since the year dot. It was produced between
1885 and 1900, and it remains (19)
………… an achievement of the Victorian
period, richly redolent of 19th century confidence and (20)
………… , energy
and optimism. It is also a monument to the enormous variety of the British
national character, and the dictionary is immeasurably (21)
………… by this
aspect. There are not only great statesmen, generals, writers, but also hundreds
of wonderfully (22)
………… characters, who you can discover only by leafing
idly through a volume of the DNB on a wet afternoon down at your local library.
The way in which the DNB was produced was very British too: on a shoestring,
out of sheer dedication, and with no state (23)
………… whatsoever. It was the
private endeavour of a group of (24)
………… , scholars and freelance
journalists, as (25)
………… to, for instance, the Austrian equivalent, produced
under the oppressive auspices of the Imperial Academy of Vienna.
REFER
ADMIT
POLITICS
ALPHABET
EMPHASIS
CAPABLE
RICH
COLOUR
INTERFERE
ENTHUSE
OPPOSE
reference
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