Innovation Startups

Respuesta correcta: D) exacerbate

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

Respuesta correcta: B) launch

• A) license'License' means to grant permission to use intellectual property, and no rights or patents are mentioned.
• B) launch'Launch' means to put a product on the market, which is what the founders decided to do despite the risk.
• C) outsource'Outsource' means to hire an outside company to do a task, whereas the sentence is about releasing their own product.
• D) archive'Archive' means to store something for future reference, which is the opposite of putting a product into use.

Respuesta correcta: D) absorb

• A) negotiate'Negotiate' means to discuss in order to reach agreement, and no bargaining is described in the sentence.
• B) anticipate'Anticipate' means to expect something, whereas the sentence describes a shortfall they had to cope with.
• C) allocate'Allocate' means to distribute for a purpose, and no distribution of money is described as the reaction.
• D) absorb'Absorb' means to take on a cost or impact oneself, which is what happens when a smaller budget is adopted.

Respuesta correcta: C) seed

• A) outstanding'Outstanding' means still unpaid or unresolved, so 'outstanding funding' would describe money owed, not capital obtained.
• B) residual'Residual' means what remains after something is taken, which does not describe the kind of capital a startup needs.
• C) seed'Seed funding' is the term for the early capital a new company raises to get started, and without it the startup cannot grow.
• D) surplus'Surplus' means an excess of resources over what is needed, the opposite of the shortage of capital described.

Respuesta correcta: A) By winning a prize in an innovation contest.

• A) By winning a prize in an innovation contest.Correct. The text says they won second prize in a city contest and 'used the money to buy their first machine'.
• B) Through a loan from a bank.Incorrect. The banks refused to lend them money because they had no business experience.
• C) By selling desks to their university.Incorrect. The university only provided the plastic waste; the desks go to rural schools, and the sales came later.
• D) With money from their families.Incorrect. Family support is never mentioned in the text.

Respuesta correcta: A) Very fast delivery was too expensive for the company to maintain.

• A) Very fast delivery was too expensive for the company to maintain.Correct. Each delivery cost more than it earned, and the company then closed warehouses and slowed its promise, which shows the model was too costly.
• B) Customers complained that fifteen minutes was too slow.Incorrect. No customer complaints appear, and the company made delivery slower, not faster.
• C) The company had problems because investors were not interested.Incorrect. The text says investors 'were excited', so lack of interest was not the problem.
• D) The startup now delivers in fifteen minutes in more neighbourhoods.Incorrect. It closed four of its six warehouses and changed the promise to one hour.

Respuesta correcta: B) A fixed phrase where a verb and a noun keep a specific meaning together

• A) Any verb followed immediately by a nounMost verb-noun pairs are ordinary word order, as in 'eat lunch', and carry no special combined sense.
• B) A fixed phrase where a verb and a noun keep a specific meaning together'Launch a product' and 'drive growth' are learned combinations whose meaning is fixed and not the sum of the two parts.
• C) A noun phrase modified by an adjectiveAn adjective modifying a noun forms no collocation here, since a collocation needs a verb as one of its elements.
• D) A phrasal verb made of a verb and a particleA phrasal verb joins a verb to an adverb or preposition, as in 'give up', not to the object noun that collocations use.

Respuesta correcta: A) Change the direction of a business to respond to a new situation.

• A) Change the direction of a business to respond to a new situation.Correct. Lucía moved from renting bicycles to deliveries when tourism stopped, which is what 'pivot' means in business.
• B) Repair the bicycles so they can turn more easily.Incorrect. This takes 'pivot' as a physical turning point; the text talks about changing the service, not repairing bikes.
• C) Sell the business to another owner.Incorrect. Lucía kept running the business herself and later had two services.
• D) Close the business for a short time.Incorrect. The text says 'Instead of closing', so she did the opposite of closing.

Respuesta correcta: C) The language is fixed, so changing the pattern sounds wrong

• A) The verb can be swapped for any synonymIf any synonym fitted, the phrase would not be a collocation, since the point of the pattern is that the pairing is conventional.
• B) The noun can be replaced by a pronoun freelyPronoun substitution is a normal transformation of any noun phrase and says nothing about whether the pairing is fixed.
• C) The language is fixed, so changing the pattern sounds wrongBecause 'drive growth' is the established pairing, replacing it with a longer structure produces something native speakers would judge as incorrect.
• D) The phrase means the same in every registerThe report is describing convention, not sameness across registers, and a fixed pairing can still be avoided in informal writing.

Respuesta correcta: B) Each is a verb-noun collocation of the kind used in business English

• A) Each contains a phrasal verb with an adverbial particleNone of the three has a verb plus particle, as in 'cut down', so the shared feature is not a phrasal verb.
• B) Each is a verb-noun collocation of the kind used in business EnglishAll three pair a verb with its object in the conventional way business English uses them, so they belong to the same collocational class.
• C) Each is an idiom that cannot be modified in any wayA business phrase like 'raise capital' accepts a size or quantity, so these are not closed idioms.
• D) Each uses a passive verb with no agentAll three are active clauses with named subjects performing the action, not passives in which the agent is hidden.

Respuesta correcta: D) had

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

Respuesta correcta: D) does

• A) a start-up doesIn formal English the auxiliary precedes the subject after 'rarely', so the order must be 'does a start-up survive'.
• B) does survive a start-upThis places the subject after the verb phrase, which is not the order English uses in inversion.
• C) survives a start-up'Survives' is not inverted, and 'a start-up' is the subject here, not the object of the verb.
• D) does'Rarely' is a negative-frequency adverb and it takes an affirmative auxiliary, so 'does a start-up survive' is correct.

Respuesta correcta: C) did

• A) has'Has' would not create the inversion that fronted 'Not until' requires, so the emphasis on the late timing is lost.
• B) was'Was' cannot be inverted to open this clause and does not mark the licensing as the later of two events.
• C) didFronting the negative phrase 'Not until' forces inversion, so the auxiliary 'did' moves ahead of the subject 'the company'.
• D) did not'Did not' would say the company never licensed the product, but the sentence describes a real licensing that came after approval.

Respuesta correcta: B) did

• A) has'Has' would not create the inversion that 'Not until' requires, so the delay before the announcement is lost.
• B) didFronting 'Not until' triggers inversion, so the auxiliary 'did' comes before the subject 'the engineers'.
• C) was'Was' cannot be inverted to open this clause and does not place the announcement after the stress test.
• D) did not'Did not' would say the engineers never announced a date, whereas the sentence only rules out an earlier one.

Respuesta correcta: D) does

• A) has'Has' would not trigger the inversion that 'Rarely' requires, leaving the clause without its negative emphasis.
• B) was'Was' cannot be inverted to open this construction and does not express how rare the success was.
• C) does not'Does not' would claim that no founder ever succeeded, whereas 'rarely' says it almost never happened.
• D) does'Rarely does' is the inversion that follows a fronted negative adverb, so 'does a founder manage' is the required pattern.

Respuesta correcta: C) was

• A) has'Has' would need a perfect construction, and the sentence describes a single decision rather than an ongoing state.
• B) had'Had' would place the uncertainty entirely in the past without the inversion the fronted intensifier requires.
• C) was'So uncertain' is an intensifier in the formal register and it takes an affirmative auxiliary, so 'was' follows it correctly.
• D) were'Were' cannot agree with the singular subject 'demand', so the auxiliary must be 'was'.

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

• A) They are literally looking for something in the trees of Barranquilla.Incorrect. This reads the idiom literally; nobody in the debate is searching real trees, because the expression is figurative and describes a mistaken line of action.
• B) The approach is too noisy and aggressive.Incorrect. 'Barking' here does not describe a loud or aggressive tone; the idiom is about choosing the wrong objective, not about how people speak.
• C) A new environmental project involving trees should be started.Incorrect. The word 'tree' belongs to a fixed expression, so the speaker is not proposing a project with trees; the speaker is criticising the approach under discussion.
• D) The current strategy is directed towards the wrong objective.Correct. 'Bark up the wrong tree' means aiming your effort at the wrong cause or target, so the speaker is saying the current plan on innovation & startups points in the wrong direction.

Respuesta correcta: D) The team must start planning the design again.

• A) The team will draw a picture to show the investors.Incorrect. This is a literal reading; the idiom is not about drawing pictures for anyone.
• B) The team will sell the prototype as it is.Incorrect. The prototype failed its first test, so selling it unchanged makes no sense in the dialogue.
• C) The investors want their money back.Incorrect. 'Back' in the idiom does not refer to money; the investors actually 'loved the design'.
• D) The team must start planning the design again.Correct. 'Back to the drawing board' means to start again after a plan fails, which follows the broken prototype.

Respuesta correcta: B) To think of or create a solution.

• A) To carry a solution up the stairs.Incorrect. 'Up' here does not describe physical movement; the phrasal verb is about ideas.
• B) To think of or create a solution.Correct. 'Come up with' means to produce an idea or plan, which is what the students will do in a week.
• C) To copy the solution of another school.Incorrect. Nothing suggests copying; 'come up with' implies creating an idea yourself.
• D) To refuse to look for a solution.Incorrect. The student accepts the challenge and asks for time, the opposite of refusing.

Respuesta correcta: B) Find original ideas that are different from the usual ones.

• A) Work outside the office more often.Incorrect. This interprets 'outside' literally; the idiom is about ways of thinking, not places to work.
• B) Find original ideas that are different from the usual ones.Correct. 'Think outside the box' means to think creatively, which answers the problem that every app 'looks the same'.
• C) Put the product in a better box.Incorrect. 'Box' here is not packaging; it represents the usual, limited way of thinking.
• D) Do exactly what the other apps do.Incorrect. The mentor criticises the fact that all apps look the same, so copying them is the opposite of the advice.