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 5.
- (a)calling for
- (b)calling on
- (c)calling at
- (d)calling from
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The frame is call on somebody to do something — to appeal to a person or a body publicly and ask them to act.
The sentence has exactly that shape: WHO, then the addressee 'governments', then the to-infinitive 'to lead a just, equitable, and fast phase out'.
The rival prepositions change what the verb can take as its object rather than how strongly it appeals, and none of them accepts a body of people followed by a to-infinitive. Option (b) is the idiom the sentence is built for.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)calling for — Call for takes the thing demanded as its object — call for action, call for a phase-out. What follows this blank is the body being addressed, not the demand itself.
- (c)calling at — Call at means to stop briefly at a place, as a train calls at a station. It takes a location, and 'governments' is not one.
- (d)calling from — Call from marks where a telephone call originates. It belongs to the literal sense of 'call' and carries no meaning of appealing to anyone to act.
Concept
'Call' changes meaning entirely with the preposition attached to it, and the kind of object that follows is the clue.
Call on + person + to-infinitive is the formal appeal: 'The UN called on member states to ratify the treaty.'
Call for + thing is the demand: 'Doctors called for a ban on the sale.'
Call at + place is a short stop, and call from + place gives the origin of a telephone call. Asking whether a person, a thing or a place follows the blank sorts all four.
A cloze blank that offers one verb with four prepositions is not asking what the verb means. It is asking which object the verb takes, so read the words immediately after the blank before you read the options.
Key facts
- Call on somebody to do something means to appeal to them formally to act.
- Call for something means to demand it, and takes the thing demanded as its object.
- Call at a place means to stop there briefly, which is why it is used of trains and short visits.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing 'calling for' because it is the commoner phrase, without checking that the word after the blank is a body of people rather than a demand.
- Treating all four as senses of a telephone call, when the appeal sense is the one the sentence needs.
A preposition blank of this kind is keyed on which object the verb takes. 'Depend on' against depend from, depend at and depend in is asked 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.24, in a cloze passage on climate-driven migration.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.