They found a world of ________ between what he said and what he did.
- (a)chaos
- (b)bitterness
- (c)difference
- (d)hope
Correct — C, difference. 'A world of difference' is a fixed English expression meaning a very great difference indeed, and the sentence has already set up the two things being compared — his words on one side, his deeds on the other.
- (a)chaos — Chaos is a state that something is in, not a relation that can sit between two items, so nothing can be 'a world of chaos between' one thing and another.
- (b)bitterness — Bitterness runs between people who have fallen out, not between a man's own words and his own actions.
- (d)hope — 'Hope' is a positive expectation rather than a gap, and it cannot be measured between two things the way a difference can.
A word-choice item resting on a set expression whose wording cannot be varied.
The phrase 'between X and Y' is the structural clue. Whatever fills the blank has to be a noun that can name a relation holding between two items, and once that filter is applied only one option survives. The idiom 'a world of difference' then confirms it, and the sentence is the standard complaint that a man's conduct does not match his talk.
- 'A world of' is used before a noun to mean a very large amount of it, as in 'a world of trouble' and 'a world of good'.
- The same gap between words and deeds is expressed by the idiom 'to practise what one preaches'.
- Choosing an emotionally strong noun that cannot grammatically stand between two things.
Asked as a fill-the-blank item where the structure after the blank, not its emotional colour, decides the word.
She <u>cut a sad figure</u> in her first performance on the stage.
- (a) made a sorry figure
- (b) cut a sorry face
- (c) cut a sorry figure
- (d) No improvement
Answer(c) cut a sorry figure
Both items reward knowing that a set English expression is fixed word for word. There the tested phrase is 'cut a sorry figure', where swapping one adjective breaks it; here it is 'a world of difference', where only the printed noun completes the idiom.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that best fills the blank — A good night's sleep will do you a world of ________.
- (a)good
- (b)rest
- (c)ease
- (d)calm
Answer(a) good — 'do someone a world of good' is the settled form.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that best fills the blank — There is a wide ________ between the promises in the manifesto and the work actually done.
- (a)anger
- (b)gap
- (c)delay
- (d)doubt
Answer(b) gap — only a noun of separation can stand between two compared items.