Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each question. Identify your answer by writing the corresponding letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet. WIND - The untamable weather machine On 15 October 1987, the southern counties of Britain were struck by the strongest winds they had experienced in 200 years. Gusts of over 130 kilometers per hour slammed across the region and £1.5- billion-worth of damage was (1)__________ in just a few hours. Extreme weather events like this are ...

Read the following passage and choose the best answer for each question. Identify your answer by writing the corresponding letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet.

WIND - The untamable weather machine

On 15 October 1987, the southern counties of Britain were struck by the strongest winds they had experienced in 200 years. Gusts of over 130 kilometers per hour slammed across the region and £1.5- billion-worth of damage was (1)__________ in just a few hours.

Extreme weather events like this are dramatic (2)__________ of the power of the wind. It’s one part of the weather we generally don't give a second thought to in Britain but it plays a vital role in people’s lives across the world. Without the formation and circulation of winds there would quite (3)__________ be no climate.

Some parts of the world seem to suffer more than others from the effects of ‘ill winds’, and links between particular winds and psychological problems (4)__________ back centuries. The Föhn, the hot dry wind that slides off the slopes of the Alps, is capable of boosting temperatures quite suddenly by 10°C or more. It affects as many as one in three people in its (5)__________, making them feel anxious, irritable and generally ill. In California, many people (6)__________ the arrival of the Santa Ana, which rushes down from the high Mojave desert. Lyall Watson, in his book Heaven’s Breath, claims that when the Santa Ana blows, murder rates soar.

The wind may get into the headlines when it comes in the form of tornadoes and hurricanes, but for the (7)__________ part it goes about its job of shifting huge masses of air around the planet. Plants take (8)__________ of this free ride to send their pollen grains far and wide. Trees (99)__________ on it to remove old leaves and make way for new growth. Spiders have been caught (10)__________ a lift at altitudes of almost 4.5 kilometers.