Boost your Vocabulary Cambridge 13 - Test 4 - Passage 02

Which word is a synonym for PRECIOUS  in this sentence: Is there hope for our planet's most PRECIOUS resource?

• stab
• peripheral
• crossing
• treasured

Which word is a synonym for SUSTAINS  in this sentence: Since soil grows 95% of our food, and SUSTAINS human life in other more surprising ways, that is a huge problem.

• beforehand
• interpretation
• persist
• support

Which word is a synonym for RESISTANT  in this sentence: That means soils do not just grow our food, but are the source of nearly all our existing antibiotics, and could be our best hope in the fight against antibiotic-RESISTANT bacteria.

• unaffected by
• certificate
• poultry
• sneer

Which word is a synonym for ALLY  in this sentence: Soil is also an ALLY against climate change: as microorganisms within soil digest dead animals and plants, they lock in their carbon content, holding three times the amount of carbon as does the entire atmosphere.

• partner
• plain
• strap
• cube

Which word is a synonym for DIGEST  in this sentence: Soil is also an ally against climate change: as microorganisms within soil DIGEST dead animals and plants, they lock in their carbon content, holding three times the amount of carbon as does the entire atmosphere.

• breach
• consume
• reject
• requisite

Which word is a synonym for RECOVER in this sentence: And once this has happened, it may take the soil thousands of years to RECOVER.

• get better
• modulate
• jelly
• clutch

Which word is a synonym for REMOVE  in this sentence: In the wild, when plants grow they REMOVE nutrients from the soil, but then when the plants die and decay these nutrients are returned directly to the soil.

• take out
• grateful
• outermost
• scenery

Which word is a synonym for ENRICH  in this sentence: Humans tend not to return unused parts of harvested crops directly to the soil to ENRICH it, meaning that the soil gradually becomes less fertile.

• sunburn
• fragment
• grin
• upgrade

Which word is a synonym for FERTILE in this sentence: Humans tend not to return unused parts of harvested crops directly to the soil to enrich it, meaning that the soil gradually becomes less FERTILE.

• junction
• proposal
• disinfectant
• fruitful

Which word is a synonym for VARYING  in this sentence: In the past we developed strategies to get around the problem, such as regularly VARYING the types of crops grown, or leaving fields uncultivated for a season.

• fortune
• adolescence
• be different
• utter