In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. I have a recurring dream. Actually, I have a few: one is about dismembering a body , I’d rather not get into it, but the (1) ________ pertinent one is about college. It’s the end of the semester, and I suddenly (2) ________ that there is a class I forgot to attend, ever, and now I have to sit for the final exam. I wake up panicked, my GPA in peril. How could I have done this? Why do I so (3) ________ dissatisfy myself? Then I remember I haven’t been in college in more than a decade. Someone with (4) ________ knowledge of my academic career might point out that this nightmare scenario is not that far removed from my actual collegiate experience, and that at certain times in my life, it did not take the magic of slumber to find me completely unprepared for a final. And, well, (5) ________ of what may or may not be true of my personal scholastic rigour, I suspect the school-stress dream is quite a common one.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 2.
- (a)promise
- (b)realise
- (c)praise
- (d)offer
Answer
Why
Correct — B.
The blank governs a that-clause — that there is a class I forgot to attend — and the adverb in front of it is suddenly. Together those mark a discovery: something the dreamer comes upon, not something he does.
realise is the verb for arriving at a fact the evidence for which was already there. It takes a that-clause naturally and it sets up the panic in the next line.
Read whole: I suddenly realise that there is a class I forgot to attend — option (b).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)promise — promise commits the speaker to a future act and is made to someone. You cannot suddenly promise a fact that is already true, and the dream has no listener to promise it to.
- (c)praise — praise needs a direct object — you praise a person or a piece of work — and does not open a that-clause, so it cannot govern the clause that follows the blank.
- (d)offer — offer takes an object or an infinitive, as in offer help or offer to stay. Neither shape is what the sentence supplies after the blank.
Concept
A cloze verb is settled first by what it is allowed to take after it, and only then by meaning.
Verbs of cognition — realise, notice, discover, remember, forget — take a that-clause: I realise that it is late. Verbs of transaction, such as praise and offer, take an object instead.
So look at what follows the blank before you weigh sense. Here it is a full clause with its own subject and verb, which removes two options before you have thought about dreams at all.
The paragraph narrates a dream in the present tense, so the verb has to work as a running commentary — the dreamer finds out about the forgotten class while the dream is still happening.
Key facts
- realise takes a that-clause: I realise that the exam is tomorrow.
- praise and offer take an object rather than a that-clause.
- promise can take a that-clause, but it commits the speaker to something instead of reporting a discovery.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing promise because it too can be followed by a that-clause
- Reading the blank for mood rather than for the structure that follows it
A cloze blank that falls on a verb is decided by the structure after it as often as by the sense before it. 12 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.21 to Q.25 runs the same five-blank format with an adverb slot at Q.22, and 9 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.22 puts foresee against rescind, legalise and affect.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.