 Solution

The Downward Lowenheim-Skolem theorem says that for an $L$-structure $M$ and a subset $S\subseteq M$, there is an elementary substructure $N\preccurlyeq M$ containing $S$ withIf an infinite cardinal $\kappa$ satisfies $\max (|L|,{\aleph }_0)\le \kappa \le |M|$, one can in particular obtain size exactly $\kappa$ by starting with a subset of that size.

Choose a default element $a_0\in M$. For every logical formula $\exists x\varphi (x,\vec{y})$ choose a Skolem function $F_{\varphi }$ which returns a witness in $M$ when one exists, and returns $a_0$ otherwise. Begin with $S$, the interpretations of the first-order language's constants, and $a_0$. Successively adjoin the values of all the original functions and these Skolem functions on finite tuples already chosen. Let $N$ be the union of the resulting countable sequence of closure stages.

There are at most $\max (|L|,{\aleph }_0)$ logical formulas, and each function has finite arity. With $\kappa =\max (|S|,|L|,{\aleph }_0)$, each closure stage has size at most $\kappa$, and so does their countable union. Closure under the original functions makes $N$ an $L$-substructure. Whenever $M\models \exists x\varphi (x,\vec{a})$ for parameters in $N$, its chosen Skolem witness belongs to $N$, since the finitely many parameters lie in some common stage. The Tarski–Vaught test therefore gives $N\preccurlyeq M$.

For the exact-cardinality version, choose an initial set of $\kappa$ elements, enlarged to contain any prescribed subset of size at most $\kappa$. The construction gives an upper bound $\kappa$ while containment gives the matching lower bound.