In 1746 a young writer called Samuel Johnson (1) ___ asked to prepare an English dictionary. Johnson worked on this dictionary for nine years, (2) ___ with the help of six people. For three years he read the works of hundreds of English writers and found example of words (3) ___ the dictionary. Then he began to write the meaning of the words. He chose not only ‘hard’ words (4) __ also many ordinary ones. When Johnson’s ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’ appeared in 1755, it was (5) ___ success. It explained (6) ___ than 42,000 words, and as was as the meaning of each word, it gave the pronunciation and history of the words. He very often gave an example from literature to show how the word was used. Johnson gave as many different meanings of the word (7) ___ he could. The dictionary was not perfect: some of Johnson’s explanations were harder to understand than the words (8) , some expressed his personal opinions, and some words (9) ___ not listed because he disliked them. However, it remained the most important English dictionary in Britain for more than a century.

1.was

2. with – an expression “with the help of”.

3. for – a word used in English to show who is intended to have or use something or where something is intended to be put. In this sentence “…words for dictionary.”

 4. but – in this sentence “but” is used to introduce a phrase that contrasts with what was said before “hard words but also many ordinary ones”.

 5. a – an indefinite article “a” must be used before a noun in singular.

6. more – is used for saying that a particular quality/thing/topic is stronger than it was before, or stronger than you expected or hoped. In this text dictionaries are being compared, and this one mentioned in this sentence is much better than the previous one.

 7. as – The sentence “... as many different meanings of the word as he could” indicates that the expression “as many... as” must be used. And “as...as” structure is often used with quantity expressions such as “much” or “many”.

 8. themselves – Reflexive pronouns are not used on their own as the subject of a clause, but they can be used with a noun to emphasis the subject: “… words themselves,…”.

9. were – a negative form in past simple. If the sentence starts in past simple, then it must be continued in the same tense.