Environmental Sustainability

Respuesta correcta: A) exacerbate

• A) exacerbateCorrect. 'Exacerbate' means to make a problem or bad situation worse, which fits perfectly here.
• B) alleviateIncorrect. 'Alleviate' means to make something less severe, which is the opposite of what's needed.
• C) mitigateIncorrect. 'Mitigate' means to make something less severe, which doesn't fit the negative consequence implied.
• D) facilitateIncorrect. 'Facilitate' means to make an action or process easy or easier, which is not appropriate for a social divide.

Respuesta correcta: C) encourages

• A) discourages'Discourage' means to talk or act someone out of doing something, and the clause describes a reward being offered for a practice. Nothing in the sentence makes the reporting less likely.
• B) postpones'Postpone' means to move something to a later time, and no deadline or delay appears in the sentence. The clause is about what the subsidy encourages now, not about anything being deferred.
• C) encourages'Encourage' means to make a behaviour more likely, and a payment tied only to disclosure makes silence about emissions the cheaper option. The clause 'the very behaviour the scheme was meant to change' names what the design promotes instead.
• D) measures'Measure' means to assess the size or amount of something, and the sentence describes an incentive rather than an assessment. The object here is a behaviour, not a quantity being recorded.

Respuesta correcta: A) gloss over

• A) gloss over'To gloss over something is to treat it as unimportant and mention it only in passing. The manager had been warned twice and still brushed the breaches aside, which is exactly the attitude the sentence describes.
• B) expose'To expose the violations would mean making them public, the opposite of what the manager did: he knew about them already and deliberately kept them quiet.
• C) escalate'To escalate is to send a matter up to a higher authority or a more serious level. The manager held the authority himself and buried the issue instead of passing it on.
• D) commemorate'To commemorate is to mark an event worth remembering with a ceremony. Safety violations are a problem to be handled, never a milestone to be celebrated, so the word cannot fit here.

Respuesta correcta: B) improves

• A) worsens'Worsen' means to make something worse, but the plant's own record is described as improving even though the waste is shifted. The verb has to match the record, not the wider problem.
• B) improves'Improve' means to make something better, and the clause 'its own record' names the figure that looks better. A plant whose own statistics rise while the rejects move elsewhere is improving one measure and worsening another.
• C) conceals'Conceal' means to hide something from view, and the rejects are transported openly to another municipality. Nothing in the sentence is kept out of sight; the disposal simply changes location.
• D) suspends'Suspend' means to stop something temporarily, and the plant keeps operating throughout the sentence. The clause describes where waste goes, not any interruption of the service.

Respuesta correcta: A) The benefits of Medellín's green corridors and one difficulty they bring.

• A) The benefits of Medellín's green corridors and one difficulty they bring.The text lists benefits (lower temperature, paths for birds and insects, pleasant streets) and one complaint (maintenance), so this option covers its full content.
• B) Why residents want the city to remove its gardens.Only some residents complain about maintenance, and most say the streets are more pleasant. Nobody asks for the gardens to be removed.
• C) How birds are destroying plants along the roads.The text says the corridors give birds a safe path; it never says birds damage the plants.
• D) A plan to build new roads through the city's streams.The trees were planted along existing roads and streams. The text is about plants, not about building roads.

Respuesta correcta: B) Public attitudes towards waste pickers have improved.

• A) Her neighbours no longer recycle at home.Nohora says neighbours now separate their bottles for her, which means they recycle more than before, not less.
• B) Public attitudes towards waste pickers have improved.She contrasts 'closed the door' (rejection) with neighbours who 'wait for me' (cooperation), which shows people now value her work more.
• C) She plans to stop working as a recicladora.Nothing in her words refers to her future plans; she only compares the past with the present.
• D) The city has stopped paying recycling organisations.The text says the city has paid organisations since 2016 and does not mention that the payments ended.

Respuesta correcta: D) Residents are expected to take part in the decisions and the results.

• A) Residents will be invited to a ceremony at the end of the project.A one-off ceremony is what an audience gets. The verb 'treated as' describes an ongoing relationship, not a single celebratory event.
• B) Residents will be told exactly what the plan will achieve.Being informed is precisely what an audience does. The report contrasts that passive role with the active one of a partner.
• C) Residents will be paid for the environmental work they do.Nothing in the sentence mentions money or payment. The contrast being drawn is between participating and merely watching, not between paid and unpaid work.
• D) Residents are expected to take part in the decisions and the results.'Partners' means people who share in the work and in the benefit. If they are treated as partners, they help shape the plan and are accountable for it, which is the opposite of being a passive audience that only receives information.

Respuesta correcta: A) Pushing pollution downstream only postpones the cost instead of removing it.

• A) Pushing pollution downstream only postpones the cost instead of removing it.The image of a drain says that the river is used to carry waste away and forget about it. The promise of future floods says that the damage returns, larger and closer to home, so the cost is deferred and not avoided.
• B) Rivers should be turned into covered channels to protect the city.The report does not recommend engineering works of that kind. It describes a consequence of an attitude, and warns about the bill that follows it.
• C) Flooding is the cheapest way to clean a polluted river.Nothing in the sentence presents flooding as a cleaning method. The verb 'pay for it' makes the flood a penalty for the pollution, not a remedy.
• D) Only large cities are affected by what happens upstream.The clause 'in floods' locates the cost in the city that did the discharging. The sentence generalises about a city's own behaviour, not about a difference between large and small cities.

Respuesta correcta: C) Because damaged plants take many years to recover.

• A) Because the paths are the only places with drinking water.The text does not say there is drinking water on the paths. The water is stored in the plants and released into rivers.
• B) Because frailejones grow quickly and block the paths.The text says the opposite: frailejones grow only about one centimetre per year.
• C) Because damaged plants take many years to recover.The sentence starting 'For this reason' refers back to the slow growth: damaged areas can take decades to recover, so visitors must avoid walking on the plants.
• D) Because visitors might get lost in the fog.Fog is mentioned only as a source of water. The text gives no warning about getting lost.

Respuesta correcta: A) To ask for support so that small vendors can afford to obey the ban.

• A) To ask for support so that small vendors can afford to obey the ban.Marta writes 'I am asking for a little help' and gives an example (lower taxes) so that sellers 'can follow the law', which is a request for support, not opposition.
• B) To demand that the government cancel the plastic ban.She says directly 'I am not asking the government to cancel the ban' and states that she supports the idea.
• C) To advertise her new bamboo plates to customers.She mentions bamboo only to explain that the alternatives are expensive; she is not selling them.
• D) To complain that customers prefer plastic cups.Her problem is that customers will not pay higher prices, not that they prefer plastic.

Respuesta correcta: B) had

• A) hasIncorrect. The sentence refers to a past sequence, requiring the past perfect in inversion.
• B) hadCorrect. 'Hardly had...' is a classic C1 inversion structure used for sequential events.
• C) wasIncorrect. 'Was' does not fit the past perfect structure required by 'Hardly'.
• D) didIncorrect. 'Did' would require the base form of the verb, not the past participle 'been'.

Respuesta correcta: C) findings

• A) finding'Finding' is singular, and an inverted clause introduced by 'were' requires a plural subject. The form therefore fails on agreement before the meaning is even considered.
• B) audit'Audit' is singular for the same reason, and the structure demands a plural subject. It also names the process rather than the results that such a process produces.
• C) findingsAfter 'were' the subject has to be plural, which rules out the singular options at once. 'Findings' are the results of an audit, and publishing them is precisely what would remove the plant's freedom to present its numbers as provisional.
• D) report'Report' is singular here and cannot agree with 'were'. A plural form would be needed, and the clause is about what becomes visible rather than about a document as such.

Respuesta correcta: B) dependence

• A) independence'Independence' would mean the opposite, since a town drawing on one reservoir is not independent of it. The hypothetical change would have reduced that reliance rather than produced it.
• B) dependence'Dependence' names the state of relying on a single source, and the third conditional sets up the world in which the reservoir had held enough water. The fragility described is exactly what that dependence produces.
• C) attendance'Attendance' refers to people being present at an event, and no event or audience appears in the sentence. The clause is about how fragile a water supply is.
• D) maintenance'Maintenance' names the work of keeping something in good condition, and the blank has to describe a property of the town's water supply rather than an activity performed on it.

Respuesta correcta: D) be

• A) being'Being' is a participle and would need an auxiliary before it, leaving the clause without a finite verb. The bare infinitive here carries the tense without any auxiliary.
• B) been'Been' is the past participle and likewise requires an auxiliary such as 'had'. No auxiliary appears after 'would rather' in this structure, so the participle has nothing to attach to.
• C) to be'Would rather' is followed directly by the verb form and not by 'to', which would produce an infinitive marker the phrase does not take. The bare form alone completes the construction.
• D) be'Would rather' takes the past form of 'be' in this construction, so 'be over' is what the phrase requires. The contrast with 'have it dragged out' sets a bare infinitive against a verb with its object, and only this option completes the first half.

Respuesta correcta: A) devolve

• A) devolve'Devolve' means to transfer a duty to a lower level of government, and the clause about funding that never followed confirms that the task was handed over without the means. The word is also followed directly by 'the problem', which is what the pattern requires.
• B) devolve on'Devolve on' would need a second object for what the responsibility passes to, and none appears before the clause. The transitive sense of 'devolve' is the one that fits this sentence.
• C) devolving'Devolving' is a participle and cannot follow 'to' in this structure, since 'try to' requires a plain infinitive. The clause 'However hard' modifies the attempt and does not call for a participle.
• D) devolved'Devolved' is the past form, and the ministry is still attempting the transfer at the moment described. Nothing in the sentence establishes that the handover happened.

Respuesta correcta: C) did

• A) was'Was' would form a passive, but the subject 'the first clean sample' is the one that comes back, not the one being acted upon, so a passive sentence cannot express this meaning.
• B) hadThe past perfect auxiliary belongs to a subordinate clause after 'when' or 'before'. Here the clause is the main one, so it needs the inverted auxiliary 'did' rather than 'had'.
• C) did'Not until...' is a negative adverbial, and the rule is that inversion follows: the auxiliary 'did' moves in front of the subject and the main verb returns to its base form, giving 'did the first clean sample come back'.
• D) could'Could' would add a sense of possibility, but the sentence asserts that the sample returned. The word that signals the inversion here is the auxiliary 'did', not a modal.

Respuesta correcta: C) The current strategy is directed towards the wrong objective.

• A) They are literally looking for something in the trees of Cartagena.Incorrect. This is a literal and incorrect interpretation of the idiom.
• B) The approach is too noisy and aggressive.Incorrect. The idiom relates to direction/objective, not volume or attitude.
• C) The current strategy is directed towards the wrong objective.Correct. This idiom means to follow a wrong line of thought or course of action.
• D) A new environmental project involving trees should be started.Incorrect. This misinterprets the figurative meaning of the phrase.

Respuesta correcta: C) The builders might save time or money by doing the work badly.

• A) The builders might make the park's corners round.This is a literal reading. 'Cut corners' is not about the shape of the park; it is a fixed expression about the quality of work.
• B) The builders might build the drainage system too large.A bigger drainage system would reduce flooding, not cause it. The warning is about work that is not good enough.
• C) The builders might save time or money by doing the work badly.'Cut corners' means to do something cheaply or quickly by skipping necessary steps; the result, flooding every season, shows the work would be poor.
• D) The builders might stop working before the rainy season.The idiom does not mean stopping work. It describes doing the work, but badly.

Respuesta correcta: A) Some officials know about the illegal mining but choose to ignore it.

• A) Some officials know about the illegal mining but choose to ignore it.'Turn a blind eye' means to deliberately ignore something you know is wrong; Mateo's reply confirms that this lack of action lets the problem grow.
• B) Some officials have eye problems caused by mercury.This takes 'blind' literally. Juliana is criticising behaviour, not describing a health condition.
• C) Some officials cannot find the mines because they are hidden.The idiom implies the officials know about the mining. Not being able to find something is different from choosing to ignore it.
• D) Some officials are closing the illegal mines one by one.If officials were closing the mines, the mercury problem would not keep growing, as Mateo says it does.

Respuesta correcta: A) The visible plastic is only a small part of a much bigger problem.

• A) The visible plastic is only a small part of a much bigger problem.An iceberg shows only a small part above the water; the professor explains that most of the plastic is invisible in tiny pieces under the sea.
• B) There is ice under the water near San Andrés.This reads the idiom literally. San Andrés is a Caribbean island, and the professor is talking about plastic, not ice.
• C) The plastic on the beach is the most dangerous part.The professor does not compare danger; she says most of the plastic is hidden, so the beach plastic is the smaller part.
• D) The problem is getting smaller every year.Nothing in the statement refers to change over time. The idiom describes how big the hidden part of the problem is.