Words in Someone Else's Mouth

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.

Many readers take (0) ___ for granted that the name on the cover of a memoir belongs to the person who actually wrote it. In a great many cases, (1) ___ could be further from the truth. Celebrities, politicians and business leaders routinely hire professional writers, (2) ___ names appear nowhere in the finished book. A ghostwriter may spend months in the company of a client, recording hours of conversation and, little (3) ___ little, learning to imitate the client's voice with (4) ___ accuracy that even close friends cannot tell the difference. The arrangement raises obvious questions of honesty. Defenders of the practice point (5) ___ that speeches are routinely written by others, and that nobody holds it (6) ___ a politician that her words were drafted by an adviser. A memoir, they argue, is valued not so (7) ___ for its prose as for the life it describes. Ghostwriters themselves tend to accept their invisibility with good grace. Anonymity comes, so (8) ___ speak, with the territory, and the best of them take quiet pride in never being noticed at all.

Words in Someone Else's Mouth

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