In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. Sleeping, dreaming and waking are three important (1)_______ for ordinary humans. But for those who have (2)_______ transcendental knowledge, all three are almost same and there is not much difference among these three. ‘The world and life is a myth and it keeps on changing’ (3)_______ Adi Shankaracharya, the greatest ‘Advaita’ preacher. Ramana Maharshi observed no difference between dreaming and waking states. What he said is that it is from one unreal world to another (4)_______ world. There is no difference between the images one sees when waking up and the images he/she sees during dreams. According to this great sage of the modern century, the first one is daydream and the second one is a night dream. The usual philosophers say that mind and body are the two elements and mind is the source of all diverse thoughts. In the waking up state, the mind is active with all tensions and dissatisfactions, so happiness is missing: during sleep as the mind is absent and so is the physical world, the real happiness (5)______. It is said that deep sleep, where there is no feeling of body, mind and the world, is the natural state of human beings.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 1.
- (a)angles
- (b)methods
- (c)problems
- (d)aspects
Answer
Why
Correct — D. The blank names what sleeping, dreaming and waking are: three states of ordinary human existence.
Aspects means parts or features of something taken as a whole, which is exactly the relation the sentence sets up — three faces of one ordinary life.
The next sentence confirms it. For those with transcendental knowledge all three are almost same, and that only makes sense if the three are facets of one thing rather than techniques or difficulties. Option (d) fits the grammar and that contrast together.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)angles — Angles are points of view taken on a subject — you look at a problem from several angles. Sleeping and waking are states a person is in, not viewpoints anyone adopts.
- (b)methods — Methods are ways of achieving something. Nobody sleeps or wakes as a technique for reaching a goal, and the passage never presents the three as means to an end.
- (c)problems — Problems contradicts the passage, which ends by calling deep sleep the natural state of human beings rather than a difficulty to be solved.
Concept
A cloze blank is settled by two things at once: the word class the slot needs and the sense the passage has already fixed.
Here the slot follows three important, so it takes a plural countable noun — and all four options are plural nouns. Grammar alone will not decide this one.
That pushes the decision onto sense. The paragraph is about what sleeping, dreaming and waking are, not about how they are done or what they cost you, so the noun has to mean facet or feature.
Idiomatic English would say aspects of ordinary human life; the paper writes aspects for ordinary humans. Quote the paper's wording as it stands, and do not let the preposition argue you out of the keyed noun.
Key facts
- Aspect means a part or feature of something considered as a whole.
- Angle means a point of view adopted towards a subject, which is why it needs someone doing the looking.
- The passage's closing claim is that deep sleep is the natural state of human beings, which blocks reading the three as problems.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing angles because it also sits comfortably after three important
- Reading the passage as a complaint about sleeplessness and picking problems
- Deciding the blank from its own sentence without reading on
A cloze passage mixes vocabulary blanks like this one with grammar blanks, so the first move on each blank is to work out which of the two you are looking at.
Aspects keys another vocabulary blank at 24 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.22, where the two broad ____ of classical dancing are the tandava and the lasya.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.