In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. Tea prices in the domestic (1)__________ continue to rule high in the current year despite the expectation of a higher production as compared to the previous year. During the past three months, tea prices have been (2)__________ with the prices of other companies. Unlike last year, tea prices have generally shown (3) __________, when tea prices rose dramatically, this year, prices seem to have (4) __________ at a rather high level. In the subsequent four months, the (5)__________ average price showed a downtrend.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 1.
- (a)field
- (b)zone
- (c)market
- (d)area
Answer
Why
Correct — C. The passage reads "Tea prices in the domestic (1)__________ continue to rule high", and a price belongs to a market, not to a place.
Domestic market is the standard pair — the home market as opposed to the export market — and it is where a price is quoted.
Field, zone and area are all words for a location. Only market names the trading arena in which a price can rule high, so option (c) fills the blank.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)field — Field names a subject of study or a stretch of land, as in the field of medicine. Prices are not quoted in a field, and domestic field is not an English collocation.
- (b)zone — Zone is a marked-off area, usually with a rule attached: an industrial zone, a no-parking zone. It fixes a place on a map and cannot hold a price.
- (d)area — Area is the loosest of the three place words and almost reads sensibly, but domestic area suggests a part of a home or a residential district, not the trade a price moves in.
Concept
Cloze blanks are decided by collocation — which words English habitually puts together — far more often than by grammar. All four options here are singular nouns that fit after "the domestic", so grammar eliminates nothing.
The paragraph is trade writing: production, prices, the current year set against the previous year. In that register domestic market is a set phrase, the counterpart of export market, and prices that rule high is its own idiom for prices holding at a high level.
Read the whole passage before filling blank 1. Its closing sentence uses downtrend and average price, which fixes the register as market reporting and steers every blank in the set.
Key facts
- Domestic market means the home market of a country, as against its export market.
- In this passage prices continue to rule high is trade usage for prices holding at a high level.
- Zone names a marked-off area with a purpose attached, as in an industrial zone.
Study next
Common traps
- Filling blank 1 in isolation, when the later blanks fix the register as market reporting.
- Choosing area because it sounds neutral and harmless.
This cloze passage runs five blanks over one short paragraph, and the blanks share a register rather than a grammar rule.
Blanks 2 to 5 of the same passage are English Q.22 to Q.25 of this shift (9 Sep 2024, 16:00).
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.