Reading the Skies

C2 Proficiency · Open Cloze · Cambridge Ready original exercise

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.

(0) ___ was not until the nineteenth century that weather forecasting began to be taken seriously as a science. Before then, sailors and farmers had little (1) ___ go on but folklore and the appearance of the sky. The invention of the telegraph changed (2) ___ that: for the first time, observations from distant places could be gathered (3) ___ time to warn of approaching storms. Even so, early forecasts were (4) ___ from reliable, and the forecasters themselves were frequently ridiculed (5) ___ getting things wrong. One early pioneer, stung by public mockery, is said to have abandoned the work altogether. Modern forecasting relies on satellites and supercomputers capable of performing trillions of calculations a second, and a five-day forecast is now (6) ___ accurate as a one-day forecast was a few decades ago. (7) ___ said, there are limits to what can ever be predicted. The atmosphere is (8) ___ sensitive to tiny variations in its initial conditions that even the most powerful computers struggle to look more than about two weeks ahead. Beyond that point, it seems, the weather will always keep some of its secrets.

Reading the Skies

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

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