Multiple-choice cloze
For questions 1-8, read the text below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each gap.
For years, city councils have about cleaning up the air, yet the moment budgets tighten, ambitious plans are quietly . What’s different now is that sensors the size of a matchbox are on lampposts, bus shelters and even prams, turning what used to be a hazy suspicion into hard, shareable data. Residents who once smog as the price of progress are beginning to , pressing officials to rather than kick the can down the road. Of course, the technology is no silver bullet: raw figures can be , and algorithms may smooth away the very spikes that make pollution dangerous. Still, when neighbourhood groups pool readings and map them street by street, it becomes harder for decision-makers to vague assurances. The upshot is a new kind of civic bargaining, in which commuters, parents and shopkeepers weigh trade-offs in plain sight—and, increasingly, hold power to account.
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