Etap szkolny: Zadanie 5 · etap rejonowy: Zadanie 4 — Fill each gap with one word
Read the text below. Complete each gap (5.1.–5.10.) with one word to create a coherent and grammatically correct text. Full spelling accuracy is required.
Each text is marked as on the paper: 10 correct → 5 pts, 9–8 → 4, 7–6 → 3, 5–4 → 2, 3–2 → 1.
Standing on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, Stonehenge is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world. Its great stones were put up about 4,500 years ago, and the largest of them weigh around 25 tonnes – roughly 5.1. _______ much as four elephants.
The smaller “bluestones” are an even bigger mystery. They 5.2. _______ brought from the Preseli Hills in Wales, more than 200 kilometres away, but nobody knows how. Many theories have been suggested, but 5.3. _______ of them has been proved.
What is certain is that the builders knew a lot 5.4. _______ the sky. The stones are lined up with the sunrise on the longest day of the year, and every summer thousands of people travel to Stonehenge to watch the sun come up 5.5. _______ 21 June.
In the past, visitors were free to walk among the stones and even climb on them, but today this 5.6. _______ not allowed. Visitors have to stay on a path around the circle, 5.7. _______ protects the monument from damage.
Not far from the stones, the remains of a large village 5.8. _______ been found. This may be the place 5.9. _______ the builders lived while they were working 5.10. _______ the monument.
Loch Ness is a long, narrow lake in the Scottish Highlands. It is not the largest loch in Scotland – that title belongs to Loch Lomond – but it is 5.1. _______ deep that it holds more water than all the lakes in England and Wales put together.
The loch is famous 5.2. _______ its legendary monster, Nessie. Stories about a strange creature in the water go back almost 1,500 years, but the modern legend only began in 1933, 5.3. _______ a new road was built along the shore and many more people could see the water.
A year later, a London doctor took the most famous photograph of Nessie: a long neck rising out of the loch. For sixty years, most people believed it 5.4. _______ real. In 1994, 5.5. _______, it was revealed that the photo 5.6. _______ been faked: the “monster” was only a toy submarine with a model head on top.
Scientists have searched the loch with sonar many times and have found nothing. Even 5.7. _______, thousands of tourists come every year hoping to catch a glimpse of the creature. 5.8. _______ of them actually see anything, but they go home happy all the same. Whether Nessie exists or 5.9. _______, she brings millions of pounds 5.10. _______ the Highlands every year.
For centuries, the White Cliffs of Dover have been 5.1. _______ first thing travellers see when they arrive in England by sea. The cliffs face the English Channel, and 5.2. _______ a clear day you can see the coast of France, only about 33 kilometres away.
The cliffs are white because they consist 5.3. _______ chalk, a soft rock 5.4. _______ formed millions of years ago from the shells of tiny sea creatures.
During the Second World War, the cliffs became a symbol of home. Soldiers coming back from France felt safe again as 5.5. _______ as the white chalk came into view. A famous song of 1942 promised that there 5.6. _______ be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover “tomorrow, when the world is free”.
Today the cliffs are slowly getting smaller. Wind, rain and waves wear the chalk away, and 5.7. _______ few years a huge piece falls into the sea. Much of the land at the top is looked 5.8. _______ by the National Trust, a charity 5.9. _______ job is to protect special places. Walkers are welcome, but they are asked 5.10. _______ to go too close to the edge.
If you visit the city of York, in the north of England, you cannot miss York Minster. It is one of the 5.1. _______ impressive cathedrals in northern Europe – and one of the slowest ever built. Work started in the 1220s, and it 5.2. _______ about 250 years to finish: none of the men who started it lived to see it completed, and 5.3. _______ did their children.
Its greatest treasure is the Great East Window, 5.4. _______ is about the size of a tennis court. It is the largest area of medieval stained glass in Britain, and it tells the story of the world from its beginning to its end.
In July 1984, a fire broke 5.5. _______ in the middle of the night, probably after lightning had struck the roof. Firefighters managed to save the famous Rose Window, but the heat was 5.6. _______ strong that its glass cracked in about 40,000 places. The repairs took four years and cost more than two million pounds.
Visitors who are not afraid 5.7. _______ heights can climb the 275 steps to the top of the central tower. On a clear day, you can see 5.8. _______ far as the North York Moors. But York Minster is 5.9. _______ just a museum: services are held there every day, as they 5.10. _______ been for centuries.
In the winter of 1850, a violent storm hit the Orkney Islands, off the north coast of Scotland. 5.1. _______ the time it was over, the wind had torn the grass off a large sand dune near the Bay of Skaill. Underneath, people found the stone walls of ancient houses.
The village, known 5.2. _______ Skara Brae, turned out to be about 5,000 years old. That makes it older than the great stones of Stonehenge. 5.3. _______ the Great Pyramid of Egypt is younger.
Skara Brae had about eight houses. As there were very few trees on the islands, the villagers had to make almost everything – beds, shelves and even cupboards – 5.4. _______ of stone. Each house had a fireplace in the middle and a bed on 5.5. _______ side of it. The houses were joined by low, covered passages, so people 5.6. _______ not have to go outside in the wind and rain.
Nobody knows exactly why the village was left empty. Some experts think the climate became colder; others believe that sand slowly buried it. 5.7. _______ the reason, the village is so well preserved 5.8. _______ visitors can still see the stone furniture exactly where its owners left it thousands of years 5.9. _______. That is 5.10. _______ it is sometimes called “Scotland’s Pompeii”.
Every year 5.1. _______ the evening of 5 November, the sky over Britain lights up with fireworks. This celebration, called Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night, goes back to 1605 – the year 5.2. _______ a small group of Catholics planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill King James I.
They managed to hide 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under the House of Lords, but the plot 5.3. _______ discovered. Guy Fawkes, who was 5.4. _______ charge of the gunpowder, was caught there just before midnight on 4 November. If he had not been caught, the king and hundreds of others 5.5. _______ have died.
To celebrate the king’s escape, people lit bonfires all 5.6. _______ London, and 5.7. _______ then the night has been celebrated every year. Children used to make a “guy” – a figure dressed in old clothes – and at the end of the evening it was put 5.8. _______ top of the bonfire.
Bonfire Night is not a public holiday, so nobody gets a day off school or work. Even 5.9. _______ it is more than 400 years old, the tradition is as popular as 5.10. _______.