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Factual passages · Question 399 of 435

"Material swirling round an invisible point… can give a black hole away." Here "give… away" means

Question 399

HardOriginal question

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so strongly that nothing can get out, not even light. The pull is so great because a large amount of has been into a very small space. This can happen at the end of a star's life, when a dying star collapses.

Since no light can escape, a black hole cannot be seen directly. Scientists find black holes in another way: with special instruments on space telescopes, they watch how gas and stars behave close to one. Material swirling round an invisible point, or stars moving as if pulled by something unseen, can .

Black holes come in a range of sizes. The smallest, called black holes, may be as small as a single atom but as heavy as a large mountain. The most common medium-sized ones are called stellar black holes. One of these can hold up to twenty times the mass of the Sun, packed into a ball only about sixteen kilometres across, and there may be dozens of them in our own , the Milky Way.

The largest are the supermassive black holes. They have the mass of more than a million Suns and would fill a ball about the size of the solar system. Scientists believe that almost every large galaxy has one at its centre.

"Material swirling round an invisible point… can give a black hole away." Here "give… away" means

Options for question 399

Show the answer and explanation
CorrectNot quiteAnswer B

Correct answer: B

Explanation

  1. The black hole cannot be seen, but the swirling material shows where it is.

  2. To give something away is to reveal what was hidden.

Worth noting

"Give away" can also mean to hand something to someone for free, but that meaning makes no sense here.

Concept
Choosing the right meaning of a phrasal verb
Typical time
45 s
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The rule this testsA word as the passage uses it
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Ten questions from Factual passages, at your own pace.