WORD FORMATION

Exercise 1:
Wisdom teeth are the third and final set of molars that most people get in their late teens or
early twenties. Sometimes these teeth can be a valuable asset to the mouth when healthy
and properly aligned, but more often, they are (1) ______ (ALIGN) and require (2) ______ 1. _______________
(MOVE). When wisdom teeth are misplaced, they may position themselves horizontally, be 2. _______________
angled toward or away from the second molars, or be angled inward or outward. Poor
alignment of wisdom teeth can crowd or damage adjacent teeth, the (3) ______ (BONE), or
nerves. Wisdom teeth also can be impacted - they are (4) ______ (CLOSE) within the soft 3. _______________
tissue and/or the mandible or only partially break through or erupt through the gum. Partial 4. _______________
eruption of the wisdom teeth allows an opening for bacteria to enter around the tooth and
cause an infection, which results in pain, swelling, jaw stiffness, and general illness. Partially
erupted teeth are also more prone to tooth decay and gum disease because their hard-to-
reach location and awkward (5) ______ (POSITION) makes brushing and flossing difficult.
If you want to know whether you have wisdom teeth or not, just ask your dentist about the 5. _______________
placing of your wisdom teeth. He or she may take an X-ray (6) ______ (PERIOD) to assess the
presence and alignment of your wisdom teeth. Your dentist may also decide to send you to
an oral surgeon for further (7) ______ (VALUE). Your dentist or oral surgeon may also 6. _______________
recommend that your wisdom teeth be extracted even before problems develop. This is
done to avoid a more painful or more complicated extraction that might have to be done a 7. _______________
few years later. This process is easier in young people, when the wisdom teeth roots are not
yet (8) ______ (FLEDGE) and the bone is less dense. In older people, recovery and (9) ______
(HEAL) time tend to be longer.
8. _______________
9. _______________

Exercise 2:
Asthma is being over-diagnosed and (1) ______ (TRIVIA), say two leading specialists. And this 1. _______________
is a major problem, because they say doling (2) ______ (EXHALE) out like Smarties means 2. _______________
that the small (3) ______ (SET) of people who have potentially (4) ______ (THREATENING) 3. _______________
asthma may be missing out on the attention and care they need. An Australian study of 108 4. _______________
children with a cough over three weeks, half of whom had been labelled as “asthmatic”,
found that after extensive investigation, only 5% did have asthma. Most had a bacterial
infection that would probably have improved with (5) ______ (BIOTIC).
Commenting on their study, respiratory paediatricians Professor Andrew Bushand his (6) 5. _______________
______ (AUTHOR) Dr Louise Fleming say that asthma was undoubtedly under-diagnosed in
the past but question whether we have now gone “too far in the other direction”. Not every 6. _______________
coughing fit is a sign of asthma. In fact, although coughing is one of the symptoms of asthma,
unless you also suffer from wheeze, chest-tightness or (7) ______ (BREATHE), you probably
haven’t got it. “I spend more time in clinic telling people their child doesn’t have asthma than
confirming that they do,” says Bush. But does it matter if you’re told you have asthma when 7. _______________
you don’t? Yes, because you may just have a transient cough that doesn’t need treatment,
and end up taking (8) ______ (MEDICINE) that can cost a large amount of money and may
cause (9) ______ (AFFECT) - and, crucially, there may be another cause of your symptoms
that is being missed. 8. _______________
9. _______________

Exercise 3:
The oil industry is now in its deepest (1) ______ (TURN) since the 1990s, if not earlier. (2) 1. _______________
______ (EARN) are down for companies that made record profits in recent years, leading 2. _______________
them to (3) ______ (COMMISSION) more than two-thirds of their rigs and sharply cut (4) 3. _______________
______ (INVEST) in exploration and production. Scores of companies have gone (5) ______ 4. _______________
(BANK), which results in (6) ______ (LAY) in this industry. 5. _______________
The cause is the (7) ______ (KNOCK) price of a barrel of oil, which has fallen more than 70 6. _______________
percent since June 2014. Prices recovered a few times last year, but a barrel of oil has 7. _______________

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 already sunk this year to its lowest level since 2004. (8) ______ (EXECUTE) think it will be
years before oil returns to $90 or $100 a barrel, a price that was pretty much the norm over 8. _______________
the last decade.

Exercise 4:
Some cultural (1) ______ (TYPE) leave the stage with a flourish, or at least some foot 1. _______________ 2.
stomping. All those (2) ______ (PITH) colonialists, absinthe-addled poets and hippie _______________ 3.
gurus founding 1970s (3) ______ (TOP): They made some noise, if not always much _______________
sense, before being swallowed by history. Yet one modern American type is slipping
into the past without a rattle or even its familiar whimper - the neurotic.
For a generation of postwar (4) ______ (MIDDLE) Americans, being neurotic meant 4. _______________
something more than merely being (5) ______ (ANXIETY), and something other than 5. _______________
exhibiting the hysteria or other (6) ______ (ABLE) mood problems for which Freud 6. _______________
used the term. It meant being interesting (if sometimes (7) ______ (VEX)) at a time
7. _______________
when (8) ______ (ANALYSIS) reigned in (44) ______ (INTELLIGENT) circles and
8. _______________
Woody Allen reigned in movie houses.
9. _______________

Exercise 5:
Dubai has recently added a (1) ______ (BLOW) urban zip lines to the (2) ______ 1. _______________ 2.
(INCREASING) list of (3) ______ (SUPER) attractions to be enjoyed in the Persian Gulf city. _______________ 3.
Beginning nearly 300 feet above the (4) ______ (TOWN) area from a residential apartment, _______________
the zip line runs more than 1,800 feet long, ending at the top of the Dubai Mall (5) ______ 4. _______________
(ROOF). The 40-second trip allows daring thrill-seekers to traverse Dubai at speeds of up to
50 miles an hour from a unique vantage point. The zip line (6) ______ (LOOK) the Burj 5. _______________
Khalifa, the world's tallest building, and courses above the Dubai Mall Fountain, the world's
largest (7) ______ (GRAPH) fountain. But while many (8) ______ (LOOK) marvel at the zip 6. _______________
liners, only a select few can actually participate. XDubai, the attraction's organizers, pick 30 7. _______________
people per week from a social media competition to participate in the invitation-only 8. _______________
attraction. The zip line is believed to be able to (9) ______ (PERFORM) other forms of
entertainment in this tourist destination city.
9. _______________

Exercise 6:
In almost every public place today the ears are assailed by the sound of pop music. In
shopping malls, public houses, restaurants, hotels and (1) ______ (ELEVATE) the ambient 1. _______________
sound is not human conversation but the music disgorged into the air by speakers — usually
(2) ______ (VISION) and inaccessible speakers that cannot be punished for their (3) ______ 2. _______________
(CONDUCT). Some places brand themselves with their own (4) ______ (SIGN) sound — folk, 3. _______________
jazz or excerpts from the Broadway musicals. For the most part, however, the prevailing 4. _______________
music is of an astounding banality — it is there in order not to be really there. It is a (5)
______ (GROUND) to the business of consuming things, a surrounding (6) ______ (NO) on 5. _______________
which we scribble the graffiti of our desires. 6. _______________
The sounds of modern life are therefore less and less human. Rhythm, which is the sound of
life, has been largely (7) ______ (PLACE) by electrical pulses, produced by a machine
programmed to repeat itself ad infinitum, and to thrust its booming bass notes into the very 7. _______________
bones of the victim. Whole areas of civic space in our society are now policed by this sound,
which drives anybody with the slightest feeling for music to (8) ______ (DISTRACT), and
ensures that for many of us a visit to the pub or a meal in a restaurant have lost their residual
meaning. These are no longer social events, but experiments in (9) ______ (DURABLE), as 8. _______________
you shout at each other over the deadly noise.
9. _______________

Exercise 7:
It's the world's most popular building material, and ever since the Romans built the
pantheon, from it some 2,000 years ago, we've been trying to find ways to make concrete
more (1) ______ (ENDURE). No matter how carefully it is mixed or strengthened, all concrete 1. _______________
eventually cracks, and under some conditions, those cracks can lead to collapse. "The

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 problem with cracks in concrete is leakage," explains professor Henk Jonkers, of Delft
University of Technology, in the Netherlands. "If you have cracks, water comes through - in
your (2) ______ (BASE), in a parking garage. Secondly, if this water gets to the steel (3) 2. _______________
______ (FORCE) -- in concrete we have all these steel rebars - if they corrode, the structure 3. _______________
collapses." But Jonkers has come up with an entirely new way of giving concrete a longer life
(4) ______ (EXPECT). "We have invented bioconcreate - that's concrete that heals itself using
bacteria," he says. 4. _______________
It is mixed just like regular concrete, but with an extra ingredient -- the "healing agent." It
remains intact during mixing, only dissolving and becoming active if the concrete cracks and
water gets in. Jonkers, a(n) (5) ______ (BIOLOGIST), began working on it in 2006, when a
concrete technologist asked him if it would be possible to use bacteria to make (6) ______ 5. _______________
(HEALTH) concrete. It took Jonkers three years to crack the problem - but there were some
tricky challenges to (7) ______ (COME). "You need bacteria that can survive the harsh 6. _______________
environment of concrete," says Jonkers. "It's a(n) (8) ______ (STONE) material, very dry." 7. _______________
Concrete is extremely (9) ______ (ALKANE) and the "healing" bacteria must wait dormant for
years before being activated by water. 8. _______________
9. _______________

Exercise 8:
“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a
certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its (1)
______ (HAND) of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s Van Goghs” exhibit. A huge 1. _______________
proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by homeless (2) ______
(OPPORTUNITY) in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less 2. _______________
hardy connoisseurs.
Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from (3) ______ (BEAT). Art, despite its religious and 3. _______________
magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding
art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators
stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum (4)
_______ (HOLD), entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. 4. _______________
Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons
could be traded like commodities.
This trend toward (5) ______ (COMMODITY) of high-brow art took an ominous, if 5. _______________
predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when
Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike
invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest (6) ______ (PIECE). Ryoei Saito, for 6. _______________
example, purchased Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a (7) ______ (RECORD) $82.5
million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly 7. _______________
vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24
million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare
his heirs the (8) ______ (HEIR) tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, 8. _______________
alarmed and enraged many. A (9) ______ (PRESENT) of the Van Gogh museum, conceding
that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art 9. _______________
remains the possession of the world at large.”

Exercise 9:
Although European decisions during the 16th and 17th centuries to explore, trade with, and
colonize large portions of the world brought tremendous economic wealth and vast
geographic influence, the enormous success of European (1) ______ (MARINE) ventures 1. _______________
during the age of exploration also engendered a litany of unintended consequences for most
of the nations with which Europe (2) ______ (ACT). Due to their (3) ______ (CREDIT) military 2. _______________
force, religious zeal, and uncompromising goal of profit, Europeans often imposed their 3. _______________
traditions, values, and customs on the people with whom they traded. They frequently acted
without regard to the long-term welfare of others as their principal concern was short-term
economic gain. Since many nations that traded with Europe placed high value on their
historical customs, some natives became deeply (4) ______ (CONCERT) by the changes that
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 occurred as a result of European power. These factors, coupled with perennial domestic 4. _______________
political (5) ______ (STABLE), caused numerous countries to grow increasingly resistant to
European influence. 5. _______________
One potent example of this ideological shift can be seen in the actions of the Tokugawa
government of Japan. In its Seclusion Edict of 1636, the government attempted to extricate
cultural interactions with Europe from the intimate fabric of Japanese society.
The Edict attempted to a (6) ______ (CHANGE) by eliminating people bringing European
ideas into Japan. The Edict stated, "Japanese ships shall by no means be sent abroad….All 6. _______________
Japanese residing abroad shall be put to death when they return home." Second, the
Edict focused on limiting trade. Articles 11 through 17 of the Edict imposed stringent
regulations on trade and commerce. Third, the government banned Christianity, which it saw
as an import from Europe that challenged the long-established and well-enshrined religious
traditions of Japan. The government went to considerable lengths to protect its culture.
Article eight of the Edict stated, "Even ships shall not be left (7) ______ (TOUCH) in the
matter of exterminating Christians." With the example of Japan and the examples of other
countries that chose a different response to European influence, it is perhaps not too far of a 7. _______________
stretch to conclude that Japan made the right decision in pursuing a path of relative
isolationism. As history (8) ______ (FOLD) during the next 400 years, in general, countries
that embraced European hegemony, whether by choice or by force, tended to suffer from
pernicious wealth inequality, perennial political fluctuation, and protracted (9) ______ 8. _______________
(DEVELOP).

9. _______________

Exercise 10:
Prior to the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Mikhail Gorbachev, seeing a
country falling behind its Western rival and a people increasingly clamoring for change,
addressed the growing internal (1) ______ (REST) in the summer of 1987 by introducing a 1. _______________
series of (2) ______ (FORM) known as perestroika (literally, restructuring). In Perestroika: 2. _______________
New Thinking for Our Country and the World, Mikhail Gorbachev discussed his analysis of the
problems facing the USSR and his plans to solve them.
Perhaps the most (3) ______ (PRESS) and visible problem facing the USSR in the last 1980s
came in the form of the country’s consistently mediocre economic performance, (4) ______ 3. _______________
(STAND) its vast natural resource wealth and large labor force. Gorbachev flatly admitted
that economic failures were increasing and current policies were failing to offer a sustainable 4. _______________
remedy. Failing to take advantage of the numerous scientific and technological
advancements available, the USSR relied on inefficient and (5) ______ (DATE) business
models. As a result, Gorbachev said, "in the last fifteen years the national (6) ______ (COME)
growth rates had declined by more than a half and by the beginning of the eighties had fallen 5. _______________
to a level close to economic stagnation." With business executives focused on using more 6. _______________
resources (in order to employ more people) instead of becoming more efficient, the country
produced poor quality products unable to compete in a global economy. Further, this
inefficiency led to shortages: "the Soviet Union, the world’s biggest producer of steel, raw
materials, fuel and energy, has (7) ______ (SHORT) in them due to wasteful or inefficient
use."
The decrepit economy engendered social anarchy and woe that only compounded economic 7. _______________
difficulties and societal misery. Gorbachev wrote of "a gradual erosion of the ideological and
moral values of our people" and noted the considerable growth in "alcoholism, drug
addiction and crime." Accentuating these difficulties, the Communist government often
ignored the needs of the average citizen, causing (8) ______ (TRUST) and resentment.
Perhaps the most destructive element of the social unraveling and inadequate government
response was the mediocre education system. Gorbachev said, "Creative thinking was driven 8. _______________
out from the social sciences, and (9) ______ (SUPER) and voluntarist assessments and
judgments were declared indisputable truths."

9. _______________

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Exercise 11:
It was books that first captured my imagination about (1) ______ (AWAY) places. TV (2) 1. _______________
______ (TRAVEL) always seemed the poor relation to the classic written accounts, although 2. _______________
of course the pictures were rather better. And then there was the issue of authenticity. All
those (3) ______ (PRETEND) theatrical types dying of thirst in the desert, as if we didn't 3. _______________
realise there was a camera crew on hand to cater for their every need. These days
programme-makers know that the audience is more sophisticated and the presence of the
camera is (4) ______ (KNOW). But can a journey with filming equipment ever be anything 4. _______________
other than a cleverly constructed fiction?
I recently got the chance to find out, when I was asked to present two one-hour programmes
for an adventure travel series. The project was the (5) ______ (CHILD) of the production 5. _______________
company, Trans-Atlantic Films, which wanted the series presented by writers and
adventurers, as well as TV professionals. My sole qualification was as a journalist specialising
in 'adventure' travel. However, I was thought to have ‘(6) ______ (SCREEN)' potential.
The first programme was filmed in Costa Rica. Within 24 hours of my arrival, I realised that
this was going to be very different from my usual 'one man and his laptop' expeditions. For a 6. _______________
start, there were five of us - director, cameraman, sound (7) ______ (RECORD), producer and
presenter. And then there was the small matter of £100,000 worth of equipment. I soon
realised that the director, Peter Macpherson, was a vastly experienced adventure (8) ______
(MAKE). ln his case, the term 'adventure' meant precisely that ‘Made a film with X’ he would 7. _______________
say (normally a famous moutaineer or skier), before describing a death-defying sequence at
the top of a glacier in Alaska or hang-gliding off the Angle Falls in Venezuela. (9) ______ 8. _______________
(VARY), these reminiscences would end with the words: ‘Had a great deal of respect for X.
Dead now, sadly …’
9. _______________

Exercise 12:
The year 2008 was (1) ______ (MOMENT). Lehman Brothers collapsed, Radovan Karadžić was 1. _______________
arrested, Russian troops massed on the Georgian border, and Barack Obama beat John
McCain to the White House. But 2008 was also (2) ______ (WORTH) for something that 2. _______________
didn’t happen. It was the year that the world didn’t eliminate the illicit drugs problem. This
quixotic goal had been set a decade earlier at a United Nations general assembly special
session when, under the (3) ______ (GLORIOUS) slogan “We can do it”, the (4) ______ 3. _______________
(NATIONAL) body pledged that, by 2008, the world would be “drug free”. 4. _______________
Now, as the UN prepares to host another special session on drugs in New York this month,
the failure of the 1998 assembly to realise the goal is recorded in the vast amounts of money,
resources, time and blood that have been expended in pursuing the apparently impossible.
As Ending the War on Drugs, a new book of essays from some of the leading critics of drugs
laws, spells out in chilling detail, pursuing such an ambition has cost (5) ______ (TAX) around
the world $100bn (£70.5bn) a year, roughly the same amount spent on foreign aid.
The main (6) ______ (BENEFIT) of the laws – framed around the 1961 UN single convention 5. _______________
on narcotic drugs, which prohibits the production and supply of a number of named
substances – are criminal organisations, which have gained control of a global market with a
(7) ______ (TURN) of more than $320bn a year. 6. _______________
(8) ______ (WHILE), millions of people have been criminalised for non-violent drug offences,
leading to more than 1.4 million arrests in the US in 2014 alone. In countries such as Iran and
Saudi Arabia, executions for drug trafficking have soared. The death toll has reached (9) 7. _______________
______ (NIGHT) proportions. In Mexico, 30 people a day are dying in the battle between drug 8. _______________
cartels and government forces. And these are just the obvious deaths.

9. _______________

Exercise 13:
The European commission is planning to (1) ______ (AUTHOR) a controversial (2) ______ 1. _______________
(WEED) that the World Health Organisation believes probably causes cancer in people, 2. _______________
despite opposition from several countries and the European parliament.
In 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer – WHO’s cancer agency - said that
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 glyphosate, the active ingredient in the (3) ______ (HERB) made by agriculture company 3. _______________
Monsanto and used widely with GM crops around the world, was (4) ______ (CLASS) as
probably likely to cause humans cancer. It also said there was “limited evidence” that 4. _______________
glyphosate was (5) ______ (CANCER) in humans for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. At the time 5. _______________
Monsanto said it could not understand the decision and that the scientific data did not
support the conclusion.
The finding has triggered an EU row over the use of glyphosate, with Italy, France, Sweden
and the Netherlands opposing its relicensing in March. More than 1.4 million people
have signed a petition calling for the chemical to be banned. But a leaked proposal from the
European commission, seen by the Guardian, has few (6) ______ (SUBSTANTIATE) changes 6. _______________
from the one that was blocked last month. It would cut the authorisation period for
glyphosate from 15 to 10 years, and mandate consideration of an immediate ban if a
European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) study next year finds it hazardous.
The Green party called it a betrayal of the (7) ______ (CAUTION) principle which obliges
regulatory caution if there is scientific doubt. Bert Staes, the Green party’s environment and 7. _______________
food safety (8) ______ (SPEAK), said: “It is scandalous that the commission is seeking to
bulldoze through an EU approval for glyphosate to be used with no restrictions, (9) ______ 8. _______________
(STAND) the very serious concerns about the impact of this toxic substance on public health
and the environment. Banning glyphosate would be the responsible course of action” 9. _______________

Exercise 14:
The Black Death, which swept (1) ______ (CROSS) Europe in the late 1340s, seemed to 1. _______________
contemporaries to herald the end of the world. To the chroniclers of Padua the plague was a
devastation more final than Noah's Flood – when God had left at least some people alive to
continue the human race. On the other side of Europe, in Kilkenny, John Clynn left blank
pages at the end of his chronicle "in case anyone should still be alive in the future". The very
(2) ______ (ENORMOUS) of the disaster drove chroniclers to take refuge in clichés: there 2. _______________
were not enough living to bury the dead; whole families died together, the priest was buried
with the penitent he had confessed a few hours earlier. The same comments appear in
chronicle after chronicle, and the result can seem curiously perfunctory, with only the
occasional vivid detail bringing the reality of the situation before the reader, such as William
Dene's remark that the stench from the mass graves was so appalling that people could
hardly bear to go past a (3) ______ (CHURCH).
(4) ______ (ALONG) these verbal clichés are the (5) ______ (NUMBER) ones. The most 3. _______________
common claim was that scarcely a tenth of the population survived the plague. Other writers 4. _______________
opted for one in five. A few, more modestly, suggested that barely half or a third of (6) 5. _______________
______ (MAN) was left alive. It is easy to dismiss such claims as meaningless exaggeration:
one more example of the notorious medieval tendency to inflate numbers. The mortality 6. _______________
rate was clearly nothing like 90% (one in 10 surviving) or even 80% (one in five surviving). But
if the figures are exaggerated, they are not (7) ______ (CONSEQUENCE). The chroniclers'
resort to them is a measure of their horror and disbelief at the number of deaths they saw
around them. The best modern estimates of the death rate in England during the first (8) 7. _______________
______ (BREAK) of plague cluster between 40% and 55%, which give a probable average
mortality of around 47% or 48%. In other words nearly half the population of England died in 8. _______________
something like 18 months. Not all of Europe was so badly affected, and even within the worst
affected areas there must have been communities which, for whatever reason, managed to
escape relatively (9) ______ (LIGHT), but the Black Death was a human disaster of appalling
magnitude.
9. _______________

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