The Songs of the Bowhead Whales - Test 4

C1 Advanced · Word Formation · C1 Advanced Trainer 2, Cambridge University Press

For questions 1–8, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line. There is an example at the beginning.

KNOW

COMPOSE

DIVERSE

LIKE

GENE

HAND

COMPARE

CONTINUE

Bowhead whales are the second largest whale species after blue whales, and can grow up to 20 metres in (0) ___ . About 10,000 bowheads are estimated to live in the Arctic region, but because they spend most of their time under the polar ice, their lives remain an (1) ___ quantity. Recently, however, oceanographers managed to record a group of bowheads producing 184 different musical (2) ___ during a three-year study off the coast of Greenland. Such was the (3) ___ of the songs that the researchers felt inspired to (4) ___ the whales to jazz musicians. Whale songs are not simple mating calls; they are complex musical phrases that are not (5) ___ hard-wired, but have to be learned over a period of time. Only a (6) ___ of mammals – including some bats and apes – are able to vocalise in ways that are (7) ___ to birdsong. Bowheads are particularly impressive in that their songs are never repeated from one year to the next and they appear able to improvise (8) ___ . Researchers are now keen to explore why bowheads change their songs so frequently.

The songs of the bowhead whales

LONG

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