Livestream English Class for C2 and C1 - Multiple Choice Cloze 10 AM UK TIME TUESDAY 29th of October
#iswearenglish #multiplechoicecloze #cloze #cpe
SUBSEQUENT STREAM ON THURSDAY 31st of October AT 3.30 PM UK TIME
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The Insect That Painted Europe Red
Most importantly, it was the (brightest, most scintillating, acutest, most glaring) and most saturated red they had ever seen.
By the middle of the 16th Century it was being used across Europe, and by the 1570s it had become one of the most profitable trades in Europe – growing from a (poor, inadequate, meagre, thin, spare, skinny) “50,000 pounds of cochineal in 1557 to over 150,000 pounds in 1574”.
In an exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the introduction of cochineal red to the European (palette, range, gamut, pallet) is illustrated in baroque paintings from the beginning of the 17th Century.
It wasn’t until the middle of the 19th Century that cochineal was replaced by synthetic alternatives as the pre-(prominent, outstanding, leading, eminent) red dyestuff in the world – impressionist painters continued to make use of the heavenly red hues imported from Mexico.
At the Palacio de Bellas Artes, works by Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir and Vincent van Gogh have all been analysed and tested (certain, sure, good, clear, positive, secure) for cochineal.
After synthetic pigments became popular, outside of Mexico, the red dye was mass-(made, produced, created, generated, manufactured) as industrial food colouring – its main use today.
Yet while the newly independent Mexico no longer controlled the valuable monopoly on cochineal, it also got something back – the sacred red that had been (ransacked, plundered, sacked, swindled) and proliferated by the Spanish.
“In Europe, as has happened in many cases, the history of the original people of Mexico has mattered very little,” Sanchez told the BBC, but in Mexico “the colour continues to be associated with ancestral magic and protects those who wear (attire, cloths, costumes, robes) dyed with cochineal.”
Did removing lead from petrol spark a decline in crime?
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Many Western nations have experienced significant (sinks, declines, wanes, shrinks) in crime in recent decades, but could the removal of lead from petrol explain that?
Working away in his laboratory in 1921, Thomas Midgley wanted to fuel a brighter tomorrow. He created tetraethyl lead - a compound that would make car engines more (efficient, capable, practical, effective) than ever.
But did the lead that we added to our petrol do something so much worse? Was it the cause of a decades-long crime wave that is only now (abating, lowering, allaying, assuaging) as the poisonous element is removed from our environment?
For most of the 20th Century crime (rose, raised, got up, progressed) and (rose, raised, got up, progressed) and (rose, raised, got up, progressed).
