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 5.
- (a)Jeopardise
- (b)Innocuous
- (c)channelise
- (d)safeguard
Answer
Why
Correct — A. Two things fix this blank. Grammatically it follows would, so it needs a bare infinitive — a verb, not an adjective.
Logically it sits inside Gujarat's case: the state is listing reasons the lions should not go, so other big cats at Kuno have to be a threat to the plan rather than a help to it.
Jeopardise means to put at risk, which is the reading that keeps the clause an objection. Option (a) is keyed.
Why the others are wrong
- (b)Innocuous — Innocuous is an adjective meaning harmless. Would innocuous lion relocation is not a clause at all, because after would English takes a bare verb.
- (c)channelise — Channelise means to direct something along a course, as with channelising funds. Nothing here is being directed anywhere, and guiding a relocation would not be an argument against it.
- (d)safeguard — Safeguard means to protect, so it turns Gujarat's objection into a point in favour of the move. A reason listed under strong objections cannot say the plan would be protected.
Concept
Two filters settle most verb-slot cloze blanks, and they are worth applying in that order.
Form first. After a modal — would, could, might — English takes the bare infinitive, which rules out an adjective on sight.
Direction second. The sentence opens with Despite strong objections from Gujarat, so everything inside that stretch must argue against the relocation. A verb that helps the plan cannot stand there, however good its English.
Jeopardise means to put at risk or endanger. British spelling takes -ise and American -ize, and the paper prints the -ise form.
The paper prints Jeopardise and Innocuous with capitals while channelise and safeguard are lower case. That is typesetting, not a clue — the blank sits in the middle of a sentence.
Key facts
- Jeopardise means to put at risk or endanger.
- After would, could and might, English takes the bare infinitive.
- Innocuous is an adjective meaning harmless, so it cannot follow a modal.
Study next
Common traps
- Picking a word from the right area of meaning without checking that it is a verb
- Missing that despite makes the whole stretch an objection, and choosing safeguard
- Treating the capital letters on two options as a hint about the answer
A cloze blank after a modal is decided twice — once by the form the modal demands, once by the direction the contrast marker sets.
Jeopardise and safeguard meet again as a pair at 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.7, where the antonym of jeopardise is keyed Safeguard. Here that same antonym is printed as a distractor.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.