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 4.
- (a)summary
- (b)gaze
- (c)record
- (d)loss
Answer
Why
Correct — C. The frame is had a poor ______ in wildlife management, and Gujarat is attacking Madhya Pradesh's past performance.
Record is the noun English uses for that: a record in a field is the history of how well you have done in it, and poor, good, strong and patchy all sit naturally in front of it.
Option (c) also keeps the preposition — you have a record in something, which is the word already printed after the blank.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)summary — Summary is a condensed account of something written or said. A state does not have a summary in a field of work, and calling a summary poor judges the writing, not the management.
- (b)gaze — Gaze is a look or a steady stare. It is not something an administration has in a policy area, and poor gaze is not an English phrase.
- (d)loss — Loss names something taken away, and it does not pair with poor — a heavy loss, yes. The objection is about competence sustained over years, not about one setback.
Concept
Record in this sense means the sum of what a person, government or team has done in a field, judged as a whole. Elections, sport and administration all use it: a poor record in office, an unbeaten record at home.
The adjective slot in front of it is fixed by usage — poor, good, strong, patchy, chequered. Which adjectives sit there naturally is a quick test of the noun you are choosing.
Note the preposition as well. Record takes in before a field of activity and of before a class of events, as in a record of accidents.
The whole clause is Gujarat's charge against Madhya Pradesh, not the passage's own verdict. The blank asks only for the noun that charge needs.
Key facts
- A record in a field means the history of one's performance in it.
- Record collocates with poor, good, strong and unbeaten.
- Record takes in before a field of activity and of before a class of events.
Study next
Common traps
- Testing the meaning of the noun and forgetting the adjective poor in front of it
- Ignoring the preposition in, which several of the options cannot take
- Reading the clause as the passage's own view instead of Gujarat's charge
SSC picks a slot where three options are ordinary English words that simply do not collocate, so the item turns on the words on both sides of the blank.
Collocation blanks are also set at 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.24, where preservation of genetic ______ keys diversity against conflict, rejection and focus.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.