Tasteless Tomatoes - Unit 4

C2 Proficiency · Open Cloze · Objective Proficiency 2nd Edition Workbook, Cambridge University Press

For questions 1–8, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each gap. There is an example at the beginning.

The average supermarket tomato is a depressing specimen: perfectly round, uniformly red, full of water, and almost (0) ___ exception, utterly devoid (1) ___ taste. In one consumer survey after (2) ___ , these mass-produced fruits rate among (3) ___ disappointing contents of our shopping bags. Supermarkets care about four things: size, weight, sameness and colour; (4) ___ taste. They consider flavour an irrelevance. But a properly grown, raw fruit, served (5) ___ nature intended – and what I (6) ___ by that is fresh off a vine and preferably still warm from the sun – is one of life's great pleasures. It should explode (7) ___ impact with your mouth and be eatable only by slurping! It should be (8) ___ fragile as to be impossible to handle without causing damage. Herein lies the problem for a commercial producer. To arrive on a supermarket shelf, a tomato must survive roughly a week of picking, packing and shipping. Unsurprising, then, that the supermarket version is not the real thing.

Tasteless Tomatoes

Available as a free printable PDF worksheet with an optional answer key.

More C2 Proficiency Open Cloze practice · All C2 Proficiency practice