Too Much Stuff

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.

Walk into almost any home and you will find drawers full (0) ___ things nobody uses: tangled cables, pens that ran dry long ago, keys to locks that were replaced years before. We hang (1) ___ to them all the same. Why do we find it so hard to part (2) ___ objects that serve no purpose? Part of the answer has to (3) ___ with the way we value what we own. Psychologists have long observed that people place a higher value on an object simply because it belongs to them, regardless (4) ___ its actual worth. Getting rid of something can therefore feel (5) ___ though we are discarding a small part of ourselves. There is also the nagging fear that, no (6) ___ how useless an item seems today, we will need it the very moment it has gone. Yet clutter takes its (7) ___ . Rooms crammed with belongings are harder to clean and harder to relax in, and for some people they are a constant source of low-level anxiety. Those who finally clear their shelves rarely regret it; few, if (8) ___ , go looking for what they threw away.

Too Much Stuff

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

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