In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary (1) _________ of average accomplishment in important areas of human development, (2) _________ living a long and healthy life, being informed and having a good quality of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of the normalised (3) _________ for each dimension. The health component is (4) _________ by life expectancy at birth, while the education dimension is measured by the average number of years of schooling for individuals aged 25 and above, as well as the (5) _________ number of years of schooling for school-age children.
Select the most appropriate answer for blank number 2.
- (a)including
- (b)manifesting
- (c)exaggerating
- (d)segregating
Answer
Why
Correct — A. What follows the blank is a list of three examples of the areas just named: living a long and healthy life, being informed, and having a good quality of living.
English introduces examples of a preceding noun with including. All four options end in -ing, so form eliminates nothing here — the only question is what job the word has to do, and that job is to exemplify.
Put the key in and the sentence reads: important areas of human development, including living a long and healthy life. Option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)manifesting — Manifesting means showing or making evident. The three items are examples of the areas, not something the areas display to an observer.
- (c)exaggerating — Exaggerating means overstating. Nothing is being overstated in a definition, and the word cannot head a list of examples in any case.
- (d)segregating — Segregating means separating into groups. It would claim the areas are being split apart, when the sentence is simply naming what they are.
Concept
Three of these options are ordinary transitive verbs in -ing form. Only one is also a connector that can head a list of examples.
That is the work including does: it marks what follows as a subset of what came before. Such as and namely do the same job in other registers.
The test is mechanical. Slot the word in and read the sentence through — if the items after the blank are examples of the noun before it, only a word meaning including will hold them.
Every option is a present participle, so a candidate scanning for form finds nothing to eliminate on. This blank turns purely on the relationship between the two halves of the sentence.
Key facts
- Including marks the words after it as examples of the noun before it.
- The three items listed in this passage are the HDI dimensions in plain words: a long and healthy life, being informed, and a good quality of living.
- Manifest, exaggerate and segregate are transitive verbs, and none of them can introduce a list of examples.
Study next
Common traps
- Trying to eliminate on form when all four options share the -ing ending.
- Choosing Manifesting because it sounds formal enough for a definition.
- Missing that the three phrases after the blank are a list rather than the object of an action.
This passage keeps blank 1 and blank 3 for vocabulary and hands blank 2 the joining work, which is why its four options all share a form.
Ask what relation the blank has to carry — example, contrast, cause, time — before you read the options. Blank 1 at English Q.21 and blank 3 at English Q.23 of this same passage reward the opposite habit, reading the words immediately around the gap.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.