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 Kuno Palpur National Park, located in Madhya Pradesh's Chambal (1)__________, has an area of 750 square kilometres. It now has leopards, jackals, spotted deer, sambhar, neelgai, chinkara, wild boar, and four-horned antelope, making it a perfect (2)_________ base for felids. Despite strong objections from Gujarat, which (3)_________ that lions were part of the state's heritage, that MP had a poor (4)________ in wildlife management, and that Kuno Palpur had other big cat species that would (5)___________ lion relocation, the sanctuary was chosen for the lion reintroduction project in 2013.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 3.
- (a)restricted
- (b)adjourned
- (c)accused
- (d)claimed
Answer
Why
Correct — D. The blank is a reporting verb governing a that-clause, and three of them hang off it: that lions were part of the state's heritage, that MP had a poor record, that Kuno Palpur had other big cat species.
Only a verb of asserting can carry that string, and it has to state Gujarat's case, since the sentence calls these strong objections.
Claimed does both — it asserts, and it marks the assertion as Gujarat's own. Option (d) fits.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)restricted — Restricted takes a direct object — restricted access, restricted the herd. It cannot govern a that-clause, and nothing in this sentence is being limited.
- (b)adjourned — Adjourned means broke off a meeting until later. It belongs to committees and courts, not to a state's argument, and it refuses a that-clause too.
- (c)accused — Accused needs a person and the preposition of — Gujarat accused MP of poor management. Written as accused that, the pattern breaks, and the first clause blames nobody.
Concept
Every reporting verb carries a complement pattern it will not leave. Some take a that-clause (claim, argue, assert, contend), some take an object and a preposition (accuse someone of, blame someone for), some take only an object (restrict something).
Test the pattern before you test the meaning. Read each option straight into the frame — Gujarat, which restricted that lions were part of the heritage — and three of the four collapse on grammar alone.
Claim also carries a useful shade. It reports an assertion without endorsing it, which suits a passage recording an objection that the decision went against.
The relative pronoun which stands for Gujarat, so the state is the subject of the blank. All three that-clauses are co-ordinated under this one verb — miss that, and the slot looks as though it wants a verb taking an ordinary object.
Key facts
- Claim, argue, assert and contend take a that-clause.
- Accuse takes an object and of, as in accused the state of negligence.
- Claim reports an assertion without committing the writer to its truth.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing on meaning alone and missing that the option cannot take a that-clause
- Reading accused as a general word for objecting
- Losing track of which noun the relative pronoun which stands for
The blank hides inside a long sentence whose three that-clauses all depend on it, so the grammar that settles it appears well after the blank itself.
A reporting-verb blank is also set at 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.23, where a quotation is followed by a blank keyed says against saying, was said and tells by.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.