Here is a gap-fill exercise from First Certificate in English (FCE).
There are fifteen gaps in the text. The most common grammatical words that are removed from the text are:
• prepositions (e.g. on, in, to)
• quantifiers (e.g. little, few)
• auxiliary verbs (e.g. do, are, have)
• determiners (e.g. the, most, another)
• relative pronouns (e.g. whom, who, where)
• possessive adjectives (e.g. my, his, their)
Read the following text and fill in the gaps with an appropriate word.
Where are the rainforests?
Rainforests once occupied almost all the land around the Equator, (1) there is hot sun and rainfall almost every day. In these hot, wet areas, trees and (2) kinds of vegetation grow fast, feeding massive numbers (3) insects and animals.
Until recently, the rainforests filled river valleys in warmer countries (4) Australia. They climbed hillsides of great mountain chains (5) as the South American Andes, and covered islands (6) Borneo to the West Indies.
In West Africa, the rainforests cover (7) wide strip of the coast from Sierra Leone to Gabon. In the last century these forests (8) mostly uninhabited. The Europeans arrived and soon began chopping (9) the trees for timber and to make way for massive plantations of cocoa, peanuts and cotton.
Today, two thirds of the West African forests (10) gone. But elsewhere in Central Africa it (11) still possible to find huge undisturbed forests. Nineteenth century explorers along (12) River Zaire called Africa the 'dark continent'. Even today (13) are no roads in some places. The inhabitants include pygmies, (14) are trying to lead (15) lives in harmony with the forest.
Adapted from First Certifiacate Gold, Langman 2000
