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 rise in global temperature (1)__________ already occurred is leading to extreme weather events that bring (2)__________ heat waves and droughts, devastating floods and increasingly powerful hurricanes and tropical storms. The combination of these factors means the impact on human health is increasing and is (3)__________ accelerate. But there is room for hope, particularly if governments take action now to (4)__________ the pledges made at Glasgow in November 2021 and to go further in resolving the climate crisis. WHO is (5)__________ governments to lead a just, equitable, and fast phase out of fossil fuels and transition to a clean energy future.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 3.
- (a)likely to
- (b)barely to
- (c)rarely to
- (d)hardly to
Answer
Why
Correct — A. The frame is 'is ____ accelerate', and the option has to supply both the missing word and the 'to'. That slot takes an adjective: is likely to accelerate.
Likely is the one adjective on the list. Barely, rarely and hardly are adverbs, and 'is barely to accelerate' is not a construction English has.
Meaning agrees with structure. The sentence has just said the impact 'is increasing', so a word predicting more of it fits, while the other three deny or restrict it: option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)barely to — Barely is an adverb meaning 'only just'. It cannot follow 'is' and govern a to-infinitive, and it would deny the increase the same sentence has just reported.
- (c)rarely to — Rarely is a frequency adverb, 'not often'. It does not fit the 'is ___ to + verb' frame, and frequency is not what this sentence is measuring.
- (d)hardly to — Hardly is a near-negative adverb, close to 'almost not'. It reverses the passage's direction and leaves 'is hardly to accelerate' as an unusable string.
Concept
'Be + adjective + to-infinitive' is a fixed English frame: is likely to, is bound to, is sure to, is due to, is about to. The slot after 'be' is adjectival, so an adverb cannot fill it.
Likely is the adjective that carries probability in that frame, and here it is also the only word offered that is an adjective at all.
The second filter is direction. The clause reports that the impact 'is increasing', and the blank sits in a clause joined to it by 'and', so a word pulling the other way would contradict what it is coordinated with.
Barely, rarely and hardly are close enough in sound and register that they read as a single family, which is what makes the set look like a meaning question. It is settled before meaning, on word class, and the option carrying the 'to' is the clue that the slot needs an adjective.
Key facts
- Likely is an adjective and fits the frame 'be likely to + verb', as in 'is likely to accelerate'.
- Barely, rarely and hardly are adverbs, and none of them takes a to-infinitive after 'be'.
- Hardly and barely are near-negatives, so a sentence carrying either is close to a denial.
Study next
Common traps
- Reading all four options as adverbs of degree and choosing on meaning, when three cannot enter the slot at all.
- Missing that the option itself carries the 'to', so the blank must end in a word that licenses a to-infinitive.
This blank looks like vocabulary and is settled by structure. A blank of the same shape is asked 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.24, where 'migrant women who (4)____ climate-sensitive livelihoods' keys depend on and the rival prepositions are simply not the ones that verb takes.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.