First Certificate In English (FCE) 2 Open Cloze Practice Test

The important idea here is how we describe the way someone speaks. To express that someone spoke in a certain manner, we use the preposition that signals the manner, followed by the noun that names that manner. In this case, “with confidence” is the natural collocation, meaning he delivered his words in a confident way. Why this fits best: “spoke with confidence” directly describes the manner of his speaking—the confidence he projected while addressing the audience. The other options don’t convey this sense. “In confidence” would suggest secrecy or telling something privately; the phrases with “at” or “on” don’t pair with “confidence” to describe how someone speaks in this context. If you wanted a different phrasing, you could say he spoke confidently, but with is the idiomatic choice for this sentence.