7. Language use Task 1 (2013.g.)

Task 1 (12 points)
Read the memories of an Olympic veteran and choose the right word or phrase which best completes each sentence. The first has been done for you as an example (1).

  

It was in 1948 that London (1) welcomed the world to the Olympic Games.

When the world came to London in 1948, they (2) were foundfoundeddiscoveredhad founded a bombed-out capital, with weeds still sprouting in the ruins. We were (3) as poorso brokemuch pooreras broke that British athletes (4) would askaskedwere askingwere asked to make their own shorts and train on the beach. We couldn’t even  (5)  agree toaffordadmitallow to build the venues (6) fromasinon our own. The Swiss (7) was donatedhad donatedwere donatingdonated the gymnastic equipment; Finland (8) sacrificedcontributedcontrivedsubscribed timber for the basketball court; and the Canadians gave two firs for the diving boards at the Empire Pool.

 

Olympic village? You must (9)  jokingbe jokinghave jokedjoked. The world’s athletes were told to bring (10)  theirouritsher own towels and sleep in improvised dorms in school classrooms. The British were eating less in 1948 than in 1945, and a pitying world sent food parcels to the Games. The Americans (11) insistedexpectedclaimeddemanded on supplementing their own diet with daily flights from Los Angeles. The French were so appalled by the food in London that they sent a special refrigerated train from Paris, (12) whichwhatthatwhere was heavily loaded with steaks.

 

And in spite of it all, the 1948 London Games were a fantastic triumph. If we (13) had not hosteddid not hostwould hosthad hosted the Games, the gloomy pessimists who predicted failure would not have been routed.