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. 4.
- (a)seems to
- (b)keeps to
- (c)assess to
- (d)access to
Answer
Why
Correct — D. Lopsided is an adjective, so whatever fills the blank has to begin a noun phrase for it to modify. Of the four choices, access is the only noun.
access to vaccines means the ability to get them, and lopsided access to vaccines is the paragraph's own point: some countries and groups got them, others did not.
The phrase is then set aside by aside, so that the sentence can move on to two further inequalities — learning losses among the poorest children, job losses among women and youth.
Read it back: Lopsided access to vaccines aside, learning losses have been greatest among poorest children.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)seems to — seems is a verb, and an adjective cannot modify a verb — lopsided seems to vaccines has no structure. The clause also already has its verb in have been.
- (b)keeps to — keeps to means adheres to, as in keeps to the rules, and it is still a verb standing where a noun is needed. Neither the grammar nor the sense survives.
- (c)assess to — Assess is a verb meaning to judge or estimate, and it never takes to — you assess a risk, you do not assess to it. It is on the list only because it looks and sounds like access.
Concept
Two tests decide this blank, and they agree.
Grammar: an adjective in front of a gap forces a noun into it. Lopsided must have something to be lopsided about.
Vocabulary: access is a noun meaning a way in or the right to use something, and it takes the preposition to.
Assess is a verb meaning to judge or measure, and it takes a direct object with no preposition. The two are near-homophones with no meaning in common.
The rest of the sentence supplies two more examples of unequal outcomes, so the blank has to name an inequality as well. Lopsided access to vaccines does exactly that.
Key facts
- Access is a noun (and a verb meaning to reach) that takes to: access to vaccines, access to education.
- Assess is a verb taking a direct object: assess the damage, never assess to the damage.
- An adjective standing before a cloze blank forces a noun into that blank.
Study next
Common traps
- Taking assess to because the passage talks about measuring the damage of the pandemic.
- Testing the options by sound, which cannot separate access from assess in a hurried reading.
SSC likes a near-homophone in a cloze because the wrong word survives a quick read aloud. The same confusion is set outside cloze too.
10 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.1 keys Assess as the synonym of Evaluate, which is the sense access never has, and this shift keys the segment but it had no affect as the error at English Q.3, where effect was wanted.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.