In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. When Ojeya Cruz Banks moved to Ohio from New Zealand (1) ________ years ago, she was overwhelmed by the logistics of uprooting her life. But Cruz Banks, a Denison University professor and a single mom, who is also my neighbour and friend, was (2) ________ to find a house next to a public elementary school. She assumed that she would be able to walk to pick up her daughter, a needed convenience given that she didn’t yet have a car. Unfortunately, when she went to register her daughter for kindergarten, she was met with an (3) ________ surprise: The only (4) ________ option was a half-day program that would bus students to a day-care centre on the outskirts of the town for the afternoon. The district did offer a limited number of full-day slots, but those had all been claimed in a lottery earlier that spring and came with a tuition cost. “I was like, ‘Cost me? What? Public school costs money here?’” she told me. Many parents across the United States, like Cruz Banks, may assume that free, full-day kindergarten is a (5) ________ part of the country’s public education system. I was one of them, until my youngest had to enter our district’s lottery several months ago. When he was assigned to the half-day program, I swung between alarm and frustration.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank no. 1.
- (a)particular
- (b)several
- (c)immense
- (d)enormous
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The blank sits inside the frame ___ years ago, so it has to be a word that says how many — a quantifier, not a describing word.
Several does that: an indefinite number, more than two, not large. It gives the reader a rough distance in time without naming a year, which is all the sentence needs before the story starts.
It reads: moved to Ohio from New Zealand several years ago.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)particular — Particular identifies a specific one — a particular year, particular cases — but it never says how many. The frame ___ years ago wants a quantity, and "particular years ago" is not English.
- (c)immense — Immense measures size or extent, not number. English says several years ago or many years ago, never immense years ago.
- (d)enormous — Enormous meets the same objection as immense: a size word forced onto a count of years, where the frame will only take a quantity.
Concept
The slot before years ago takes a quantifier — a word that counts or estimates. Several, many, a few, ten and thirty all fit; adjectives of size or importance do not.
Several is the useful middle term. A few suggests two or three, many suggests a lot, and several sits between them while committing the writer to nothing.
Notice that the paragraph never fixes a date anywhere. The writer is not building a timeline, so the word in the blank has to keep that vagueness rather than remove it.
All four options are adjectives, so part of speech settles nothing here. What settles it is idiom: the frame ___ years ago takes a quantity word and nothing else.
Key facts
- Several means an indefinite number greater than two but not large.
- The frame X years ago takes a number or a quantifier: several, many, a few, twenty.
- Immense and enormous describe size or degree, not countable number.
- Particular picks out a specific instance — a particular year, particular reasons — but it does not express quantity.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing immense or enormous because the sentence goes on to say she was overwhelmed.
- Judging the blank on meaning alone, without checking that the word can modify a plural count noun.
In an SSC cloze the blanks are numbered and each is scored as its own question, but the passage is one continuous text — read it whole once before answering any of them.
Blanks 2 to 5 of this passage are English Q.22, Q.23, Q.24 and Q.25 of this shift (19 Sep 2024, 09:00).
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.