Treasure on the Seabed

C2 Proficiency · Word Formation · Cambridge Ready original exercise

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 (0).

DISPENSE

EXPONENT

CATASTROPHE

LARGE

CHART

PECULIAR

REPAIR

ALTERNATE

Scattered across the (0) ___ floor of the deep ocean lie billions of potato-sized nodules rich in cobalt, nickel and manganese, metals that are (1) ___ to the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles. With global demand for such metals forecast to rise (2) ___ over the coming decades, mining companies are eager to begin extraction as soon as regulations allow. Marine biologists, however, warn that the consequences could be (3) ___ . The abyssal plains remain (4) ___ (5) ___ territory, and the creatures that inhabit them, many of which have yet to be formally described, may be (6) ___ vulnerable to disturbance, since they grow and reproduce at an extraordinarily slow pace. Plumes of sediment stirred up by mining machinery could drift for hundreds of kilometres, smothering filter-feeding animals and inflicting (7) ___ damage on ecosystems that took millions of years to evolve. Proponents of deep-sea mining counter that, with demand soaring, the (8) ___ , vast open-pit mines on land, carry their own heavy environmental toll.

Treasure on the Seabed

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