In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. There is a saying that coming events cast their shadows before. (1)________, it is not universally true. Something can happen within a second, and one may not (2)________ it. (3)________, some instances show that predictions based on certain signs have gone wrong. People generally say that natural calamities can be predicted by observing the animals. But what if animals are suffering from some disease and don’t show any signs before the event appears? They may fail to make peculiar sounds or actions about the events which are going to take place. (4)________, some unnatural calamities that are likely to appear may forecast their shadows by some bad omens. (5)________, we should not completely cancel out the possibilities that animals can sense certain unnatural happenings.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 2.
- (a)rescind
- (b)foresee
- (c)legalise
- (d)affect
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The sentence is about prediction: Something can happen within a second, and one may not ________ it.
If an event is over inside a second, what a person fails to do is see it coming. Foresee means precisely that — to know or expect a thing before it happens — and it takes the event as its object.
The passage is arguing about signs read in advance, so option (b) is the only choice that keeps the sentence on its own subject.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)rescind — Rescind means to cancel or revoke a decision, an order or a law. An event that happens within a second is not a decision, and nothing in the passage is being called off.
- (c)legalise — Legalise means to make something lawful. Legality is nowhere in this passage, which is about predicting events rather than permitting them.
- (d)affect — Affect means to influence. The sentence is about failing to know of the event in advance, not about failing to change it, which is a different failure entirely.
Concept
Fore- is the give-away prefix. It means before, in time.
foresee, forecast, foretell, foresight, forewarn — every one of them is about knowing something in advance, which is exactly the passage's subject.
The blank sits inside an argument about signs that appear ahead of an event. A word that cannot carry the idea of advance knowledge cannot fill it, however comfortably it fits the grammar.
That is the habit to build for cloze vocabulary: settle the meaning the paragraph needs first, then ask which options are even about that.
All four options are verbs and all four fit the grammar of the slot, so the blank is decided by sense alone. Reading the whole passage once is faster here than testing options one at a time.
Key facts
- Foresee means to know or expect something before it happens, from the prefix fore- meaning in advance.
- Rescind means to cancel or revoke an order, a law or a decision.
- Legalise means to make something lawful.
- The fore- family runs foresee, forecast, foretell, forewarn and foresight.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing affect because it fits the grammar of the slot
- Reading foresee as merely see and rejecting it because nothing is visible
Blank 2 is the one vocabulary blank in this passage — the other four are connectors, asked as English Q.21 and Q.23 to Q.25 (09 Sep 2024, 09:00). SSC habitually plants one meaning-based blank among the linking words.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.