Тренировочный вариант Яндекс.ЕГЭ по английскому языку № 16 за 2016 год

A. There are a lot of traditions connected with Christmas but perhaps the most important one is the giving of presents. Family members wrap up their gifts and leave them at the bottom of the Christmas tree to be found on Christmas morning. Children leave a long sock or stocking at the end of their beds on Christmas Eve, 24th December, hoping that Father Christmas will come down the chimney during the night and bring them small presents, fruit and nut.

B. At some time on Christmas day the family will sit down to a big turkey dinner followed by Christmas pudding or Christmas cake. As for Christmas cake, heavy and overfilling it is not to everybody’s taste. To make things worse, it takes weeks to make and when it is ready it can last until Easter, so if you don’t like it, you have to try and eat some at Christmas to avoid being haunted by it months after.

C. Officially Christmas and New Year celebrations run from the 24th of December to the 2nd of January. However, for many Brits the Christmas marathon starts as early as the beginning of October with the first festive adverts on TV. The idea of Christmas shopping is that you spend as much money as you can on anything you cast your eyes on, preferably something neither you nor your family or friends will ever use. An average British family spends 670 pounds or more around the Christmas period.

D. Long live Christmas! — say pickpockets, car thieves and burglars getting their share of Christmas shopping. Every year thousands of people get their wallets stolen in overcrowded shops and streets. Lots of lovely presents, which somebody spent so much time and money on, disappear without a trace when cars and homes are broken into. As much as 9% of people experience a burglary in December.

E. Who doesn’t want to have a white Christmas? Playing snowballs and making a snowman with the whole family on Christmas Day is most people’s dream (apart from the countries like Australia that celebrate Christmas in summer, on the beach). This dream is more likely to come true in northern countries like Russia, but for the British people it’s different. Although it’s not uncommon to get some snow in Scotland and northern England, the rest of Britain is normally only lucky enough to get some frost. In most cases the weather is wet and gloomy.

F. New year is a time for celebrating and making a new start in life. In Britain many people make New Year’s resolutions. This involves people promising themselves that they will improve their behaviour in some way, by giving up bad habits. People might decide to give up smoking, for example, or to go on a diet. These promises are often broken in the first few days of the New Year, however!

G. Christmas is celebrated on the 25th of December. For most families, this is the most important festival of the year. On this day many people are travelling home to be with their families. Most houses are decorated with brightly-coloured paper or holly, and there is usually a Christmas tree in the corner of the front room. Unfortunately, not all families get on well together. As it is a well-known fact, some magazines publish tips on how to cope with Christmas, such as yoga, meditation or holidays abroad.

The Lost Islands of Socotra, Yemen Socotra is a collection of 4 islands (A) ________. Socotra’s long isolation has given birth to a unique variety of endemic flora, giving Socotra the distinction of being “the most alien looking place on earth". Besides, (B) ________. The average temperature around the year is about 25 degrees Centigrade. Rains are very scanty and strong winds hit the island in monsoon.

Socotra’s geography is also a major reason why it is such a fascinating place. Its little patch of land has a diverse geography. The landscape consists of features like plains, plateaus, sandy beaches and mountains as high as 1503 meters. The plateaus are full of caves, (C) ________. There are sand dunes and amazing beaches which add to the awesomeness of the place.

In spite of the scorching temperature, (D) ________. Socotra is home to a total of 825 plant species, out of which about one third are found nowhere on earth. The islands also offer a diverse show of fauna, with birds mostly dominating the environment. Socotra has about 140 species of birds (E) ________.

The 4 islands of Socotra have a total population of about 70,000. The inhabitants are mostly of Arabian and African origin. They are peaceful, joyful, and hospitable. For me, (F) ________ for conserving this amazing ecosystem for the rest of the world.

It was a funny thing, a surprising thing, that brought Grandad back to me. It was algebra.

I collided with algebra in my first year at secondary school, and it sent me reeling. The very word itself seemed sinister, a word from black magic. Algebracadabra. Algebra messed up one of those divisions between things that help you make sense of the world and keep it tidy. Letters make words; figures make numbers. They had no business getting tangled up together. Those as and bs and xs and ys with little numbers floating next to their heads, those brackets and hooks and symbols, all trying to conceal an answer, not give you one. I'd sit there in my own little darkness watching it dawn on the faces of my classmates. Their hands would go up — “Miss! Miss!” — and mine never did. The homework reduced me to tears.

“I don’t see the point of it,” I wailed. “I don’t know what it’s for!”

Grandad, as it turned out, liked algebra, did know what it was for. But he sat opposite me and didn’t say anything for a while. Considering my problem in that careful, expressionless way of his.

Eventually he said, “Why do you do PE at school?” “What?” “PE. Why do they make you do it?”

“Because they hate us?” I suggested.

“And the other reason?”

“To keep us fit, I suppose.”

“Physically fit, yes.” He reached across the table and put the first two fingers of each hand on the sides of my head.

“There is also mental fitness, isn’t there?”

I can explain to you why algebra is useful. But that is not what algebra is really for.” He moved his fingers gently on my temples. “It’s to keep what is in here healthy. PE for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down. Now, let us use these little puzzles here to take our brains for a jog.”

And it worked. Not that I ever enjoyed algebra. But I did come to see that it was possible to enjoy it. Grandad taught me that the alien signs and symbols of algebraic equations were not just marks on paper. They were not flat. There were threedimensional, and you could approach them from different directions, look at them from different angles, stand them on their heads. You could take them apart and put them together in a variety of shapes, like Lego. I stopped being afraid of them.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but those homework sessions were a breakthrough in more ways than one. If Grandad had been living behind an invisible door, then algebra turned out to be the key that opened it and let me in. And what I found wasn’t the barren tumbleweed landscape that I’d imagined. It was not like that at all.

I’d known for a long time that he was fond of puzzles. When I was younger he used to send me letters with lots of the words replaced by pictures or numbers. They always ended 02U, which meant Love to you, because zero was ‘love’ in tennis. He was often disappointed when I couldn’t work them out. Or couldn’t be bothered to. Now I discovered that Grandad’s world was full of mirages and mazes, or mirrors and misleading signs. He was fascinated by riddles and codes and conundrums and labyrinths, by the origin of place names, by grammar, by slang, by jokes — although he never laughed at them — by anything that might mean something else. He lived in a world that was slippery, changeable, fluid.

It was a funny thing, a surprising thing, that brought Grandad back to me. It was algebra.

I collided with algebra in my first year at secondary school, and it sent me reeling. The very word itself seemed sinister, a word from black magic. Algebracadabra. Algebra messed up one of those divisions between things that help you make sense of the world and keep it tidy. Letters make words; figures make numbers. They had no business getting tangled up together. Those as and bs and xs and ys with little numbers floating next to their heads, those brackets and hooks and symbols, all trying to conceal an answer, not give you one. I'd sit there in my own little darkness watching it dawn on the faces of my classmates. Their hands would go up — “Miss! Miss!” — and mine never did. The homework reduced me to tears.

“I don’t see the point of it,” I wailed. “I don’t know what it’s for!”

Grandad, as it turned out, liked algebra, did know what it was for. But he sat opposite me and didn’t say anything for a while. Considering my problem in that careful, expressionless way of his.

Eventually he said, “Why do you do PE at school?” “What?” “PE. Why do they make you do it?”

“Because they hate us?” I suggested.

“And the other reason?”

“To keep us fit, I suppose.”

“Physically fit, yes.” He reached across the table and put the first two fingers of each hand on the sides of my head.

“There is also mental fitness, isn’t there?”

I can explain to you why algebra is useful. But that is not what algebra is really for.” He moved his fingers gently on my temples. “It’s to keep what is in here healthy. PE for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down. Now, let us use theselittle puzzles here to take our brains for a jog.”

And it worked. Not that I ever enjoyed algebra. But I did come to see that it was possible to enjoy it. Grandad taught me that the alien signs and symbols of algebraic equations were not just marks on paper. They were not flat. There were threedimensional, and you could approach them from different directions, look at them from different angles, stand them on their heads. You could take them apart and putthem together in a variety of shapes, like Lego. I stopped being afraid of them.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but those homework sessions were a breakthrough in more ways than one. If Grandad had been living behind an invisible door, then algebra turned out to be the key that opened it and let me in. And what I found wasn’t the barren tumbleweed landscape that I’d imagined. It was not like that at all.

I’d known for a long time that he was fond of puzzles. When I was younger he used to send me letters with lots of the words replaced by pictures or numbers. They always ended 02U, which meant Love to you, because zero was ‘love’ in tennis. He was often disappointed when I couldn’t work them out. Or couldn’t be bothered to. Now I discovered that Grandad’s world was full of mirages and mazes, or mirrors and misleading signs. He was fascinated by riddles and codes and conundrums and labyrinths, by the origin of place names, by grammar, by slang, by jokes — although he never laughed at them — by anything that might mean something else. He lived in a world that was slippery, changeable, fluid.

It was a funny thing, a surprising thing, that brought Grandad back to me. It was algebra.

I collided with algebra in my first year at secondary school, and it sent me reeling. The very word itself seemed sinister, a word from black magic. Algebracadabra. Algebra messed up one of those divisions between things that help you make sense of the world and keep it tidy. Letters make words; figures make numbers. They had no business getting tangled up together. Those as and bs and xs and ys with little numbers floating next to their heads, those brackets and hooks and symbols, all trying to conceal an answer, not give you one. I'd sit there in my own little darkness watching it dawn on the faces of my classmates. Their hands would go up — “Miss! Miss!” — and mine never did. The homework reduced me to tears.

“I don’t see the point of it,” I wailed. “I don’t know what it’s for!”

Grandad, as it turned out, liked algebra, did know what it was for. But he sat opposite me and didn’t say anything for a while. Considering my problem in that careful, expressionless way of his.

Eventually he said, “Why do you do PE at school?” “What?” “PE. Why do they make you do it?”

“Because they hate us?” I suggested.

“And the other reason?”

“To keep us fit, I suppose.”

“Physically fit, yes.” He reached across the table and put the first two fingers of each hand on the sides of my head.

“There is also mental fitness, isn’t there?”

I can explain to you why algebra is useful. But that is not what algebra is really for.”

He moved his fingers gently on my temples. “It’s to keep what is in here healthy. PE for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down. Now, let us use these little puzzles here to take our brains for a jog.”

And it worked. Not that I ever enjoyed algebra. But I did come to see that it was possible to enjoy it. Grandad taught me that the alien signs and symbols of algebraic equations were not just marks on paper. They were not flat. There were three-dimensional, and you could approach them from different directions, look at them from different angles, stand them on their heads. You could take them apart and put them together in a variety of shapes, like Lego. I stopped being afraid of them.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but those homework sessions were a breakthrough in more ways than one. If Grandad had been living behind an invisible door, then algebra turned out to be the key that opened it and let me in. And what I found wasn’t the barren tumbleweed landscape that I’d imagined. It was not like that at all.

I’d known for a long time that he was fond of puzzles. When I was younger he used to send me letters with lots of the words replaced by pictures or numbers. They always ended 02U, which meant Love to you, because zero was ‘love’ in tennis. He was often disappointed when I couldn’t work them out. Or couldn’t be bothered to. Now I discovered that Grandad’s world was full of mirages and mazes, or mirrors and misleading signs. He was fascinated by riddles and codes and conundrums and labyrinths, by the origin of place names, by grammar, by slang, by jokes — although he never laughed at them — by anything that might mean something else. He lived in a world that was slippery, changeable, fluid.

It was a funny thing, a surprising thing, that brought Grandad back to me. It was algebra.

I collided with algebra in my first year at secondary school, and it sent me reeling. The very word itself seemed sinister, a word from black magic. Algebracadabra. Algebra messed up one of those divisions between things that help you make sense of the world and keep it tidy. Letters make words; figures make numbers. They had no business getting tangled up together. Those as and bs and xs and ys with little numbers floating next to their heads, those brackets and hooks and symbols, all trying to conceal an answer, not give you one. I'd sit there in my own little darkness watching it dawn on the faces of my classmates. Their hands would go up — “Miss! Miss!” — and mine never did. The homework reduced me to tears.

“I don’t see the point of it,” I wailed. “I don’t know what it’s for!”

Grandad, as it turned out, liked algebra, did know what it was for. But he sat opposite me and didn’t say anything for a while. Considering my problem in that careful, expressionless way of his.

Eventually he said, “Why do you do PE at school?” “What?” “PE. Why do they make you do it?”

“Because they hate us?” I suggested.

“And the other reason?”

“To keep us fit, I suppose.”

“Physically fit, yes.” He reached across the table and put the first two fingers of each hand on the sides of my head.

“There is also mental fitness, isn’t there?”

I can explain to you why algebra is useful. But that is not what algebra is really for.” He moved his fingers gently on my temples. “It’s to keep what is in here healthy. PE for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down. Now, let us use these little puzzles here to take our brains for a jog.”

And it worked. Not that I ever enjoyed algebra. But I did come to see that it was possible to enjoy it. Grandad taught me that the alien signs and symbols of algebraic equations were not just marks on paper. They were not flat. There were threedimensional, and you could approach them from different directions, look at them from different angles, stand them on their heads. You could take them apart and put them together in a variety of shapes, like Lego. I stopped being afraid of them.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but those homework sessions were a breakthrough in more ways than one. If Grandad had been living behind an invisible door, then algebra turned out to be the key that opened it and let me in. And what I found wasn’t the barren tumbleweed landscape that I’d imagined. It was not like that at all.

I’d known for a long time that he was fond of puzzles. When I was younger he used to send me letters with lots of the words replaced by pictures or numbers. They always ended 02U, which meant Love to you, because zero was ‘love’ in tennis. He was often disappointed when I couldn’t work them out. Or couldn’t be bothered to. Now I discovered that Grandad’s world was full of mirages and mazes, or mirrors and misleading signs. He was fascinated by riddles and codes and conundrums and labyrinths, by the origin of place names, by grammar, by slang, by jokes — although he never laughed at them — by anything that might mean something else. He lived in a world that was slippery, changeable, fluid.

It was a funny thing, a surprising thing, that brought Grandad back to me. It was algebra.

I collided with algebra in my first year at secondary school, and it sent me reeling. The very word itself seemed sinister, a word from black magic. Algebracadabra. Algebra messed up one of those divisions between things that help you make sense of the world and keep it tidy. Letters make words; figures make numbers. They had no business getting tangled up together. Those as and bs and xs and ys with little numbers floating next to their heads, those brackets and hooks and symbols, all trying to conceal an answer, not give you one. I'd sit there in my own little darkness watching it dawn on the faces of my classmates. Their hands would go up — “Miss! Miss!” — and mine never did. The homework reduced me to tears.

“I don’t see the point of it,” I wailed. “I don’t know what it’s for!”

Grandad, as it turned out, liked algebra, did know what it was for. But he sat opposite me and didn’t say anything for a while. Considering my problem in that careful, expressionless way of his.

Eventually he said, “Why do you do PE at school?” “What?” “PE. Why do they make you do it?”

“Because they hate us?” I suggested.

“And the other reason?”

“To keep us fit, I suppose.”

“Physically fit, yes.” He reached across the table and put the first two fingers of each hand on the sides of my head.

“There is also mental fitness, isn’t there?”

I can explain to you why algebra is useful. But that is not what algebra is really for.”

He moved his fingers gently on my temples. “It’s to keep what is in here healthy. PE for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down. Now, let us use these little puzzles here to take our brains for a jog.”

And it worked. Not that I ever enjoyed algebra. But I did come to see that it was possible to enjoy it. Grandad taught me that the alien signs and symbols of algebraic equations were not just marks on paper. They were not flat. There were three-dimensional, and you could approach them from different directions, look at them from different angles, stand them on their heads. You could take them apart and put them together in a variety of shapes, like Lego. I stopped being afraid of them.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but those homework sessions were a breakthrough in more ways than one. If Grandad had been living behind an invisible door, then algebra turned out to be the key that opened it and let me in. And what I found wasn’t the barren tumbleweed landscape that I’d imagined. It was not like that at all.

I’d known for a long time that he was fond of puzzles. When I was younger he used to send me letters with lots of the words replaced by pictures or numbers. They always ended 02U, which meant Love to you, because zero was ‘love’ in tennis. He was often disappointed when I couldn’t work them out. Or couldn’t be bothered to. Now I discovered that Grandad’s world was full of mirages and mazes, or mirrors and misleading signs. He was fascinated by riddles and codes and conundrums and labyrinths, by the origin of place names, by grammar, by slang, by jokes — although he never laughed at them — by anything that might mean something else. He lived in a world that was slippery, changeable, fluid.

It was a funny thing, a surprising thing, that brought Grandad back to me. It was algebra.

I collided with algebra in my first year at secondary school, and it sent me reeling. The very word itself seemed sinister, a word from black magic. Algebracadabra. Algebra messed up one of those divisions between things that help you make sense of the world and keep it tidy. Letters make words; figures make numbers. They had no business getting tangled up together. Those as and bs and xs and ys with little numbers floating next to their heads, those brackets and hooks and symbols, all trying to conceal an answer, not give you one. I'd sit there in my own little darkness watching it dawn on the faces of my classmates. Their hands would go up — “Miss! Miss!” — and mine never did. The homework reduced me to tears.

“I don’t see the point of it,” I wailed. “I don’t know what it’s for!”

Grandad, as it turned out, liked algebra, did know what it was for. But he sat opposite me and didn’t say anything for a while. Considering my problem in that careful, expressionless way of his.

Eventually he said, “Why do you do PE at school?” “What?” “PE. Why do they make you do it?”

“Because they hate us?” I suggested.

“And the other reason?”

“To keep us fit, I suppose.”

“Physically fit, yes.” He reached across the table and put the first two fingers of each hand on the sides of my head.

“There is also mental fitness, isn’t there?”

I can explain to you why algebra is useful. But that is not what algebra is really for.”

He moved his fingers gently on my temples. “It’s to keep what is in here healthy. PE for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down. Now, let us use these little puzzles here to take our brains for a jog.”

And it worked. Not that I ever enjoyed algebra. But I did come to see that it was possible to enjoy it. Grandad taught me that the alien signs and symbols of algebraic equations were not just marks on paper. They were not flat. There were three-dimensional, and you could approach them from different directions, look at them from different angles, stand them on their heads. You could take them apart and put them together in a variety of shapes, like Lego. I stopped being afraid of them.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but those homework sessions were a breakthrough in more ways than one. If Grandad had been living behind an invisible door, then algebra turned out to be the key that opened it and let me in. And what I found wasn’t the barren tumbleweed landscape that I’d imagined. It was not like that at all.

I’d known for a long time that he was fond of puzzles. When I was younger he used to send me letters with lots of the words replaced by pictures or numbers. They always ended 02U, which meant Love to you, because zero was ‘love’ in tennis. He was often disappointed when I couldn’t work them out. Or couldn’t be bothered to. Now I discovered that Grandad’s world was full of mirages and mazes, or mirrors and misleading signs. He was fascinated by riddles and codes and conundrums and labyrinths, by the origin of place names, by grammar, by slang, by jokes — although he never laughed at them — by anything that might mean something else. He lived in a world that was slippery, changeable, fluid.

It was a funny thing, a surprising thing, that brought Grandad back to me. It was algebra.

I collided with algebra in my first year at secondary school, and it sent me reeling. The very word itself seemed sinister, a word from black magic. Algebracadabra. Algebra messed up one of those divisions between things that help you make sense of the world and keep it tidy. Letters make words; figures make numbers. They had no business getting tangled up together. Those as and bs and xs and ys with little numbers floating next to their heads, those brackets and hooks and symbols, all trying to conceal an answer, not give you one. I'd sit there in my own little darkness watching it dawn on the faces of my classmates. Their hands would go up — “Miss! Miss!” — and mine never did. The homework reduced me to tears.

“I don’t see the point of it,” I wailed. “I don’t know what it’s for!”

Grandad, as it turned out, liked algebra, did know what it was for. But he sat opposite me and didn’t say anything for a while. Considering my problem in that careful, expressionless way of his.

Eventually he said, “Why do you do PE at school?” “What?” “PE. Why do they make you do it?”

“Because they hate us?” I suggested.

“And the other reason?”

“To keep us fit, I suppose.”

“Physically fit, yes.” He reached across the table and put the first two fingers of each hand on the sides of my head.

“There is also mental fitness, isn’t there?”

I can explain to you why algebra is useful. But that is not what algebra is really for.” He moved his fingers gently on my temples. “It’s to keep what is in here healthy. PE for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down. Now, let us use theselittle puzzles here to take our brains for a jog.”

And it worked. Not that I ever enjoyed algebra. But I did come to see that it was possible to enjoy it. Grandad taught me that the alien signs and symbols of algebraic equations were not just marks on paper. They were not flat. There were threedimensional, and you could approach them from different directions, look at them from different angles, stand them on their heads. You could take them apart and putthem together in a variety of shapes, like Lego. I stopped being afraid of them.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but those homework sessions were a breakthrough in more ways than one. If Grandad had been living behind an invisible door, then algebra turned out to be the key that opened it and let me in. And what I found wasn’t the barren tumbleweed landscape that I’d imagined. It was not like that at all.

I’d known for a long time that he was fond of puzzles. When I was younger he used to send me letters with lots of the words replaced by pictures or numbers. They always ended 02U, which meant Love to you, because zero was ‘love’ in tennis. He was often disappointed when I couldn’t work them out. Or couldn’t be bothered to. Now I discovered that Grandad’s world was full of mirages and mazes, or mirrors and misleading signs. He was fascinated by riddles and codes and conundrums and labyrinths, by the origin of place names, by grammar, by slang, by jokes — although he never laughed at them — by anything that might mean something else. He lived in a world that was slippery, changeable, fluid.

(1) Having a song, tune, or commercial jingle stuck in one's head is a phenomenon (KNOW)________ as having an earworm.

(2) Most people have had an earworm at one time. (3) The experience is harmless and unrelated to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and endomusia, the (HEAR)________ of music that is not really there.

(4) Certain songs — simple, repetitive, or oddly incongruous — have properties that act as mental mosquito bites in that they produce a cognitive "itch." (5) The condition also arises when people struggle (REMEMBER)________ forgotten lyrics or how a song ends.

(6) To scratch a cognitive itch, the brain (REPEAT)________ the song, which then traps the hapless victim in a repeated cycle of itching and scratching.

(7) Everyone has his or her own list of demon tunes that haunt. (8) Earworms occur more often among women, musicians, and individuals who (TEND)________ to worry.

(9) Earworms also vary across situations, striking when people (TIRE)________ or under stress.

(10) How can you make an earworm go away? (11) Thinking of something else or actually listening to the song in question are thought to help, but there is presently no research evidence showing what works best. (12) Fortunately, (MANY)________ episodes eventually dissipate on their own.

(1) Having a song, tune, or commercial jingle stuck in one's head is a phenomenon (KNOW)________ as having an earworm.

(2) Most people have had an earworm at one time. (3) The experience is harmless and unrelated to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and endomusia, the (HEAR)________ of music that is not really there.

(4) Certain songs — simple, repetitive, or oddly incongruous — have properties that act as mental mosquito bites in that they produce a cognitive "itch." (5) The condition also arises when people struggle (REMEMBER)________ forgotten lyrics or how a song ends.

(6) To scratch a cognitive itch, the brain (REPEAT)________ the song, which then traps the hapless victim in a repeated cycle of itching and scratching.

(7) Everyone has his or her own list of demon tunes that haunt. (8) Earworms occur more often among women, musicians, and individuals who (TEND)________ to worry.

(9) Earworms also vary across situations, striking when people (TIRE)________ or under stress.

(10) How can you make an earworm go away? (11) Thinking of something else or actually listening to the song in question are thought to help, but there is presently no research evidence showing what works best. (12) Fortunately, (MANY)________ episodes eventually dissipate on their own.

(1) Having a song, tune, or commercial jingle stuck in one's head is a phenomenon (KNOW) ________ as having an earworm.

(2) Most people have had an earworm at one time. (3) The experience is harmless and unrelated to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and endomusia, the (HEAR) ________ of music that is not really there.

(4) Certain songs — simple, repetitive, or oddly incongruous — have properties that act as mental mosquito bites in that they produce a cognitive "itch." (5) The condition also arises when people struggle (REMEMBER) ________ forgotten lyrics or how a song ends.

(6) To scratch a cognitive itch, the brain (REPEAT) ________ the song, which then traps the hapless victim in a repeated cycle of itching and scratching.

(7) Everyone has his or her own list of demon tunes that haunt. (8) Earworms occur more often among women, musicians, and individuals who (TEND) ________ to worry.

(9) Earworms also vary across situations, striking when people (TIRE) ________ or under stress.

(10) How can you make an earworm go away? (11) Thinking of something else or actually listening to the song in question are thought to help, but there is presently no research evidence showing what works best. (12) Fortunately, (MANY) ________ episodes eventually dissipate on their own.

(1) Having a song, tune, or commercial jingle stuck in one's head is a phenomenon (KNOW) ________ as having an earworm.

(2) Most people have had an earworm at one time. (3) The experience is harmless and unrelated to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and endomusia, the (HEAR) ________ of music that is not really there.

(4) Certain songs — simple, repetitive, or oddly incongruous — have properties that act as mental mosquito bites in that they produce a cognitive "itch." (5) The condition also arises when people struggle (REMEMBER) ________ forgotten lyrics or how a song ends.

(6) To scratch a cognitive itch, the brain (REPEAT) ________ the song, which then traps the hapless victim in a repeated cycle of itching and scratching.

(7) Everyone has his or her own list of demon tunes that haunt. (8) Earworms occur more often among women, musicians, and individuals who (TEND) ________ to worry.

(9) Earworms also vary across situations, striking when people (TIRE) ________ or under stress.

(10) How can you make an earworm go away? (11) Thinking of something else or actually listening to the song in question are thought to help, but there is presently no research evidence showing what works best. (12) Fortunately, (MANY) ________ episodes eventually dissipate on their own.

(1) Having a song, tune, or commercial jingle stuck in one's head is a phenomenon (KNOW)________ as having an earworm.

(2) Most people have had an earworm at one time. (3) The experience is harmless and unrelated to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and endomusia, the (HEAR)________ of music that is not really there.

(4) Certain songs — simple, repetitive, or oddly incongruous — have properties that act as mental mosquito bites in that they produce a cognitive "itch." (5) The condition also arises when people struggle (REMEMBER)________ forgotten lyrics or how a song ends.

(6) To scratch a cognitive itch, the brain (REPEAT)________ the song, which then traps the hapless victim in a repeated cycle of itching and scratching.

(7) Everyone has his or her own list of demon tunes that haunt. (8) Earworms occur more often among women, musicians, and individuals who (TEND)________ to worry.

(9) Earworms also vary across situations, striking when people (TIRE)________ or under stress.

(10) How can you make an earworm go away? (11) Thinking of something else or actually listening to the song in question are thought to help, but there is presently no research evidence showing what works best. (12) Fortunately, (MANY)________ episodes eventually dissipate on their own.

(1) Having a song, tune, or commercial jingle stuck in one's head is a phenomenon (KNOW) ________ as having an earworm.

(2) Most people have had an earworm at one time. (3) The experience is harmless and unrelated to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and endomusia, the (HEAR)________ of music that is not really there.

(4) Certain songs — simple, repetitive, or oddly incongruous — have properties that act as mental mosquito bites in that they produce a cognitive "itch." (5) The condition also arises when people struggle (REMEMBER)________ forgotten lyrics or how a song ends.

(6) To scratch a cognitive itch, the brain (REPEAT)________ the song, which then traps the hapless victim in a repeated cycle of itching and scratching.

(7) Everyone has his or her own list of demon tunes that haunt. (8) Earworms occur more often among women, musicians, and individuals who (TEND)________ to worry.

(9) Earworms also vary across situations, striking when people (TIRE)________ or under stress.

(10) How can you make an earworm go away? (11) Thinking of something else or actually listening to the song in question are thought to help, but there is presently no research evidence showing what works best. (12) Fortunately, (MANY)________ episodes eventually dissipate on their own.

(1) Having a song, tune, or commercial jingle stuck in one's head is a phenomenon (KNOW)________ as having an earworm.

(2) Most people have had an earworm at one time. (3) The experience is harmless and unrelated to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and endomusia, the (HEAR)________ of music that is not really there.

(4) Certain songs — simple, repetitive, or oddly incongruous — have properties that act as mental mosquito bites in that they produce a cognitive "itch." (5) The condition also arises when people struggle (12)REMEMBER forgotten lyrics or how a song ends.

(6) To scratch a cognitive itch, the brain (REPEAT)________ the song, which then traps the hapless victim in a repeated cycle of itching and scratching.

(7) Everyone has his or her own list of demon tunes that haunt. (8) Earworms occur more often among women, musicians, and individuals who (TEND)________ to worry.

(9) Earworms also vary across situations, striking when people (TIRE)________ or under stress.

(10) How can you make an earworm go away? (11) Thinking of something else or actually listening to the song in question are thought to help, but there is presently no research evidence showing what works best. Fortunately, (MANY)________ episodes eventually dissipate on their own.

(1) We don't really fall in love; we jump in love – we are at the mercy of our chemical make-up.

(2) Chemicals are released in our brain when we are drawn to someone. (3) One of these, phenylethylamine, makes us feel very (EXCITE) ________ – everything seems (WONDER) ________.

(4) It's almost like flu: your face is flushed, your palms are (SWEAT) ________, you breathe (HEAVY) ________, you even feel a slight tingle in the hands and feet.

(5) Generally, people are attracted to opposites of (THEY) ________ – the organised person to the (ORGANISE) ________; the bookworm to the social butterfly.

(6) In the next stage of love, a hormone called oxytocin is released. (7) This plays an important role throughout our lives: it is a "cuddle hormone" and acts as a kind of infatuation chemical. (8) Childbirth and the noise of a baby crying also make it flow.

(1) We don't really fall in love; we jump in love – we are at the mercy of our chemical make-up.

(2) Chemicals are released in our brain when we are drawn to someone. (3) One of these, phenylethylamine, makes us feel very (EXCITE) ________ – everything seems (WONDER) ________.

(4) It's almost like flu: your face is flushed, your palms are (SWEAT) ________, you breathe (HEAVY) ________, you even feel a slight tingle in the hands and feet.

(5) Generally, people are attracted to opposites of (THEY) ________ – the organised person to the (ORGANISE) ________; the bookworm to the social butterfly.

(6) In the next stage of love, a hormone called oxytocin is released. (7) This plays an important role throughout our lives: it is a "cuddle hormone" and acts as a kind of infatuation chemical. (8) Childbirth and the noise of a baby crying also make it flow.

(1) We don't really fall in love; we jump in love – we are at the mercy of our chemical make-up.

(2) Chemicals are released in our brain when we are drawn to someone. (3) One of these, phenylethylamine, makes us feel very (EXCITE) ________ – everything seems (WONDER) ________.

(4) It's almost like flu: your face is flushed, your palms are (SWEAT) ________, you breathe (HEAVY) ________, you even feel a slight tingle in the hands and feet.

(5) Generally, people are attracted to opposites of (THEY) ________ – the organised person to the (ORGANISE) ________; the bookworm to the social butterfly.

(6) In the next stage of love, a hormone called oxytocin is released. (7) This plays an important role throughout our lives: it is a "cuddle hormone" and acts as a kind of infatuation chemical. (8) Childbirth and the noise of a baby crying also make it flow.

(1) We don't really fall in love; we jump in love – we are at the mercy of our chemical make-up.

(2) Chemicals are released in our brain when we are drawn to someone. (3) One of these, phenylethylamine, makes us feel very (EXCITE) ________ – everything seems (WONDER) ________.

(4) It's almost like flu: your face is flushed, your palms are (SWEAT) ________, you breathe (HEAVY) ________, you even feel a slight tingle in the hands and feet.

(5) Generally, people are attracted to opposites of (THEY) ________ – the organised person to the (ORGANISE) ________; the bookworm to the social butterfly.

(6) In the next stage of love, a hormone called oxytocin is released. (7) This plays an important role throughout our lives: it is a "cuddle hormone" and acts as a kind of infatuation chemical. (8) Childbirth and the noise of a baby crying also make it flow.

(1) We don't really fall in love; we jump in love – we are at the mercy of our chemical make-up.

(2) Chemicals are released in our brain when we are drawn to someone. (3) One of these, phenylethylamine, makes us feel very (EXCITE) ________ – everything seems (WONDER) ________.

(4) It's almost like flu: your face is flushed, your palms are (SWEAT) ________, you breathe (HEAVY) ________, you even feel a slight tingle in the hands and feet.

(5) Generally, people are attracted to opposites of (THEY) ________ – the organised person to the (ORGANISE) ________; the bookworm to the social butterfly.

(6) In the next stage of love, a hormone called oxytocin is released. (7) This plays an important role throughout our lives: it is a "cuddle hormone" and acts as a kind of infatuation chemical. (8) Childbirth and the noise of a baby crying also make it flow.

(1) We don't really fall in love; we jump in love – we are at the mercy of our chemical make-up.

(2) Chemicals are released in our brain when we are drawn to someone. (3) One of these, phenylethylamine, makes us feel very (EXCITE) ________ – everything seems (WONDER) ________.

(4) It's almost like flu: your face is flushed, your palms are (SWEAT) ________, you breathe (HEAVY) ________, you even feel a slight tingle in the hands and feet.

(5) Generally, people are attracted to opposites of (THEY) ________ – the organised person to the (ORGANISE) ________; the bookworm to the social butterfly.

(6) In the next stage of love, a hormone called oxytocin is released. (7) This plays an important role throughout our lives: it is a "cuddle hormone" and acts as a kind of infatuation chemical. (8) Childbirth and the noise of a baby crying also make it flow.

Ben Alexander always struggled to (A)________ in. Teased at school, he ________ to the internet, where he found a whole new world of friends. Subscribing (B)________ the hugely popular online game World of Warcraft, he (C)________ 12 million other people — including the actor Vin Diesel, the presenter Jonathan Ross and his wife Jane Goldman — in a quest reminiscent of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

In the game, players create avatars in whose guise they spend hours with other players fighting battles. “There’s lots of working together,” says Alexander. “That’s what made it so attractive, because the social thing was something I always had trouble with. It was a lot easier to socialize and make friends online than it was in real life."

The 19-year-old’s interest in the game soon developed into an obsession. He began (D)________ his biology lectures at university and spending up to 17 hours a day online. Eventually he had depression diagnosed and was (E)________ medication. He was also treated (F)________ internet addiction.

Alexander admits that he needed help: “I don’t think I would have been able to get out of it myself.”

Ben Alexander always struggled to (A) ________ in. Teased at school, he (B) ________ to the internet, where he found a whole new world of friends. Subscribing (C) ________ the hugely popular online game World of Warcraft, he (D) ________ 12 million other people — including the actor Vin Diesel, the presenter Jonathan Ross and his wife Jane Goldman — in a quest reminiscent of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.