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 3.
- (a)saying
- (b)was said
- (c)says
- (d)tells by
Answer
Why
Correct — C. The quotation is complete and the speaker's name follows it, so the blank must supply the sentence's main verb in the reporting pattern quote, verb, speaker.
Says is finite and active, and it is singular, agreeing with the single subject Adi Shankaracharya.
The present tense is the ordinary choice for reporting a teaching that still stands, which is how the passage treats him — quoted for what his doctrine holds, not for something he did on one particular day. Option (c) is the form that does all of that.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)saying — Saying is a participle, not a finite verb. Put it in and the sentence has no main verb at all, leaving the quotation and the name joined by nothing.
- (b)was said — Was said is passive, so the words become the subject and the speaker needs a by-phrase — was said by Adi Shankaracharya. Without by, the name has no grammatical role.
- (d)tells by — Tells by is not English in this frame. Tell takes a listener as its object, as in tells us, and the stray by leaves the speaker's name stranded.
Concept
A direct quotation followed by the speaker's name uses inversion: the quoted words, then the reporting verb, then the subject — so said the judge, says the poet.
Because that reporting verb is the sentence's only finite verb, a participle cannot fill the slot; the sentence would collapse into a fragment.
Voice decides the rest. An active reporting verb takes the speaker as its subject, while a passive one demotes the speaker into a by-phrase — and no by is printed here.
The passage describes Adi Shankaracharya as the greatest Advaita preacher, an appositive phrase after the name. It is not part of the blank; the slot still needs a finite verb that can take him as its subject.
Key facts
- After a direct quotation the reporting verb may be inverted before its subject, as in says Adi Shankaracharya.
- A passive reporting verb needs a by-phrase to name the speaker: was said by Adi Shankaracharya.
- Saying is a present participle and cannot serve as a clause's only verb.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing saying because the sentence reads smoothly aloud
- Accepting was said without checking that the speaker has no by to attach to
- Assuming an old teaching demands a past reporting verb
Grammar blanks inside a cloze passage announce themselves in the option set: four forms of one verb, or one verb across tenses and voices.
Blanks of that kind are also set at 18 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.21, where the options are were, are, is and was and was is keyed, and at 23 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.22, where they are was, were, are and is and are is keyed.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.