In the C1 advanced handbook, there is a practice test for Reading and Use of English Part 1: Multiple Choice Cloze.
We put the text with the answers through our English Grammar Profiler on this website and the text is clearly C2.
Next, we are taking a corpus-based approach to do the test to see if this can be answered with nothing more than frequency.
For the 0 example, our choices are 4 adjectives:
A straight B common C everyday D conventional
A search in NOW corpus for:
in the _JJ way
1 IN THE RIGHT WAY 12059
2 IN THE BEST WAY 11153
3 IN THE FOLLOWING WAY 7140
4 IN THE MILKY WAY 2901
5 IN THE WRONG WAY 2038
6 IN THE USUAL WAY 1548
7 IN THE TRADITIONAL WAY 1469
8 IN THE NORMAL WAY 1293
9 IN THE WORST WAY 1275
10 IN THE ONLY WAY 1032
11 IN THE CORRECT WAY 720
12 IN THE SAFEST WAY 691
13 IN THE PROPER WAY 661
14 IN THE ORDINARY WAY 388
15 IN THE OPPOSITE WAY 374
16 IN THE SIMPLEST WAY 293
17 IN THE OLD WAY 292
18 IN THE APPROPRIATE WAY 278
19 IN THE NICEST WAY 251
20 IN THE CONVENTIONAL WAY 250
Our answer is the most common adjective of the four choices found in this prepositional phrase.
After years studying North America’s black bears in the conventional way,
wildlife biologist Luke Robertson felt no closer to understanding the creatures.
For question 1, ‘win‘ is the most common infinitive::
_VVI their trust
1 PUT THEIR TRUST 772
2 GAIN THEIR TRUST 730
3 EARN THEIR TRUST 502
4 PLACE THEIR TRUST 417
5 WIN THEIR TRUST 314
This probably is C2 in the English Vocabulary Profile:
win approval/respect/support, etc.
C2 to get approval/respect/support, etc. because of your skill and hard work
He realised that he had to win their trust.
2. A search for the most common singular noun before ‘into‘:
_NN1 into
1 INVESTIGATION INTO 299071
2 INSIGHT INTO 135251
The insight this has given him into their behaviour has allowed him to dispel certain myths about bears.
3. We can do a very open search for 3 tokens to the left of ‘belief‘ for set phrases:
* * * belief
1 IDENTITY, RELIGIOUS BELIEF 8384
2 CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF 6585
Contrary to popular belief, he contends that …
4. Which verbs collocate with ‘for‘?
_VVI for
1 PAY FOR 331846
2 WORK FOR 187569
3 WAIT FOR 184067
4 VOTE FOR 175303
5 LOOK FOR 170969
6 GO FOR 169333
7 APPLY FOR 161805
8 PREPARE FOR 151440
9 ASK FOR 144063
10 QUALIFY FOR 138099
11 PLAY FOR 137823
12 ALLOW FOR 118863
13 ACCOUNT FOR 110718
14 FIGHT FOR 100929
15 RUN FOR 95304
16 CARE FOR 93838 (This is a somewhat formal expression of ‘liking or wanting’ something)
… bears do not care as much for fruit as previously supposed.
Choice 5 is the first that is not about the most common collocation.
He also disputes that they are ferocious.
1 concludes 2 disputes 3 reasons 4 argues
For this choice, we need to understand more about the paragraph. A part of the topic sentence, ‘dispel certain myths about bears‘ really helps us know what the main point of choice 5 is. Disputing and dispelling something are the closest semantically here and the prefixes also help.
A search for which of the question 6 options are most commonly followed with ‘by’:
1 MISLED BY 7553
2 MISGUIDED BY 841
3 MISINFORMED BY 602
4 MISDIRECTED BY 111
And even more specifically:
1 SHOULD NOT BE MISLED BY 129
2 SHOULD NOT BE MISGUIDED BY 16
3 SHOULD NOT BE MISDIRECTED BY 1
He says that people should not be misled by behaviour such as swatting paws on the ground
as this is a defensive rather than an aggressive act.
For question 7, we search for:
under no _NN1
1 UNDER NO OBLIGATION 5405
2 UNDER NO ILLUSION 2512
He is under no illusion about their feelings for him.
For question 8, a search for:
_VVI beyond
1 GO BEYOND 38346
2 LOOK BEYOND 18473
3 MOVE BEYOND 14777
4 EXTEND BEYOND 5679
It is clear that their interest in him does not extend beyond the food he brings.