Matching headings test 1

 
YOUR ANSWERS 
QUESTIONS Q1 
Q2 
Q3 
Q4 
Q5 
Q6 
Q7 
ANSWERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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TEST 14 
Questions 1-7. Match the following headings (A-H) to the texts (Q1-Q7). 
Note: There is one extra heading which you do not need to use.
 
 
 
HEADINGS: 
A) How it all began 
B) Different or alike? 
C) A way of learning languages 
D) A world language 
E) Greedy borrower 
F) A universal language 
G) A special day 
H) A language teacher 
Q1. 
Do you know how many people there are who speak English? It’s quite a number! The exact figure is 
impossible to tell, but it is around 400 million people. Geographically, English is the most widespread 
language on earth, and it is second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it. It is spoken in the 
British Isles, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and much of Canada and South Africa. English is also a 
second language of another 300 million people living in more than 60 countries. 
Q2. 
In Shakespeare’s time only a few million people spoke English. All of them lived in what is now Great 
Britain. But as a result of various historical events English spread all over the world. For example, five 
hundred years ago people didn’t speak English in North America: the American Indians had their own 
languages. So did the Eskimos in Canada, the aborigines in Australia, and the Maoris in New Zealand. The 
English arrived and set up their colonies... Today, English is represented in every continent and in the three 
main oceans — the Atlantic, the Indian and the Pacific. 
Q3. 
English is mixing with and marrying other languages around the world. It is probably the greatest 
borrower. Words newly created or in fashion in one language are very often added to English as well. 
There are words from 120 languages in its vocabulary, including Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, 
Russian, and Spanish. 
Q4. 
A century ago, some linguists predicted that one day England, America, Australia and Canada would be 
speaking different languages. But with the arrival of records, cinema, radio, and television, the two brands 
of English have begun to draw back together again. Britons and Americans probably speak more alike 
today than they did 50 or 60 years ago. (In the 1930s and 1940s, for example, American films were dubbed 
in England. It’s no longer the practice today.) Canadian English, Australian English, South African 
English, and many other ‘Englishes’ around the world are coming to resemble one another.