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. 4.
- (a)inaccessible
- (b)available
- (c)futile
- (d)nonviable
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The next sentence settles this one. The district did offer full-day slots, but they had all been claimed in a lottery earlier that spring.
So the full-day places existed and could not be had, while the half-day program could. The word the blank needs means still to be had, and that is available.
It reads: the only available option was a half-day program — because the full-day slots were gone, not because they never existed.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)inaccessible — Inaccessible reverses the sense. The half-day program was the one thing she could actually get, and it was the full-day slots that were out of reach.
- (c)futile — Futile means pointless, incapable of producing a result. The half-day program is inconvenient rather than useless — it does school the child for half a day.
- (d)nonviable — Nonviable means unworkable. The passage treats the half-day program as the arrangement actually in force, so it plainly worked, however badly it suited her.
Concept
This blank is fixed by the sentence after it rather than the sentence it sits in. The passage says the full-day slots existed but had all been claimed in the spring lottery.
That distinction — a thing exists, but you cannot get it — is the whole work of the word available. Availability is about supply and access, not about quality or worth.
Futile and nonviable both judge the half-day program as bad. The passage does judge it as bad, but not in this slot: the slot describes what was left, not what was good.
The pull towards futile and nonviable is real, because the writer clearly dislikes the arrangement. Hold on to the frame instead: the only ___ option sets up a shortage, and shortage is an availability idea.
Key facts
- Available: able to be obtained or used at the time in question.
- Inaccessible: unable to be reached or obtained, which is the reverse of what the sentence needs.
- The passage says the full-day slots were claimed in a lottery and carried a tuition cost.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing futile or nonviable because the writer's tone about the half-day program is hostile.
- Filling the blank from its own sentence, before the lottery sentence explains what had gone.
A cloze blank is not always explained by its own sentence. Here the explanation arrives in the next one, so read to the end of the paragraph before committing.
Blanks 1, 2, 3 and 5 of this passage are English Q.21, Q.22, Q.23 and Q.25 of this shift (19 Sep 2024, 09:00).
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.