In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. 2022 sees us entering a third year of the pandemic, and the harm 1________ children is increasingly evident: A record rise in child poverty. Setbacks to progress on 2_________ vaccinations. Disruption to education for entire generation. That harm 3________ as an unintended side effect of the world's efforts to manage the crisis. COVID has been a uniquely dis-equalizing crisis. Lopsided 4________ vaccines aside, learning losses have been greatest among poorest children, and job losses have been disproportionately borne by women and youth. What next for the world’s children in the year ahead? As in the past two years, prospects for children will continue to hinge 5________ on the pandemic and how it is managed.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank No. 1.
- (a)seems to
- (b)done to
- (c)did to
- (d)does to
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The clause already owns a finite verb: the harm ... is increasingly evident. So the blank cannot hold a second tensed verb. It has to hold something that modifies harm.
done to is a past participle phrase — a relative clause shrunk to two words: the harm [that has been] done to children. It hangs on harm and leaves is as the only tensed verb.
The collocation confirms it. Harm is done to somebody: you do harm to children, you do no harm at all.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)seems to — seems is a finite verb, so the clause would carry two of them, and seems to also demands an infinitive after it. The harm seems to children is not English.
- (c)did to — did is a finite past verb needing a subject of its own. Harm is already the subject of is, so the sentence splits in the middle with nothing joining the halves.
- (d)does to — does is finite too, and the same collision follows: is and does both claiming harm as their subject, with no conjunction between them.
Concept
A blank sitting inside a long subject is nearly always a modifier, not a verb. Find the main verb first, then ask what the blank is still allowed to be.
Here the subject runs from the harm to children, and the main verb is is. A past participle — done, caused, inflicted — can sit inside a subject and compress a whole relative clause into a word or two.
The finite forms did and does cannot do that job, because a clause carries one tensed verb unless a conjunction brings in a second.
The participle also delivers a passive sense without a passive auxiliary. The harm done to children is harm that somebody has done, with the doer left unnamed — which is exactly the diffuse blame the passage wants.
Key facts
- Harm collocates with the verb do: harm is done to someone, not made or given to them.
- A past participle after a noun is a reduced relative clause, so the harm done to children equals the harm that was done to children.
- One clause carries one tensed verb unless a conjunction joins a second.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing a tense that matches the timeframe of the passage, when the slot is not a verb slot at all.
- Hearing did to and does to as natural because the same words work in a question: what did it do to children?
Each blank in this passage turns on something different, and blank 1 is settled by structure rather than meaning.
SSC has run the same pandemic-and-children cloze shape in other shifts: 10 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.21 to Q.25 and 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.21 to Q.25 both set five blanks over a Covid schooling passage.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.