What Do Cloze Passages Look For?
Cloze passages examine a variety of items including grammar, vocabulary, verb structures, various tenses and connectors. These items are tested in essentially two different ways.
The first type is tested at the sentence level.
At the sentence level, the blank in the sentence needs to be filled with a word or phrase that…
1. is part of a word combination (Eg. check-in, thumbs-up)
2. is part of a phrasal verb (Eg. help is on the way, driving me crazy);
3. is part of a verb form (continuous, perfect, future etc.)
OR
The second type is testing a word at the context level.
This type of problem tests your overall understanding of the text. The answer to the question is not immediately before or after the blank. You find the answer to these types of problems in other parts of the text. The answer has already been mentioned in the text or will be mentioned in the text. All you have to do is find them!
The types of words that answer context level questions are:
1. vocabulary items (often synonyms)
2. pronouns or time referents (eg. before, while, after, when etc.)
3. connectors (eg. in addition, on the other hand)
By recognizing what types of words are being tested and knowing how they are being tested, your chances for success in the cloze reading passage are increased greatly.
How To Tackle Cloze Passages
1. Read the whole text WITHOUT trying to fill in the blanks the first time through.
This will help you get a feel for the text. Pay attention to referent words like after, then, while, before etc.
2. Pay attention to the VERBS before you begin to read the text again and try to fill in the blanks.
This will help you make right choices regarding verb collocations. There will be verb collocations and grammar based questions in general so it’s a good idea to know what you’ll be looking for. Try to see the big picture because so often in this section of the test students focus on the blanks and miss these types of questions.
3. Look at the paragraphs and their RELATIONSHIP to each other.
Is it the introduction? Conclusion? Is the paragraph describing an event or process? Is it a continuation of the discussion in the previous paragraph?
Again, this will help you see the big picture and identify context level questions much easier. Connectors and like; that is to say, in other words, in contrast, etc. should be recognized here. Remember, such questions are almost always found in the exam.
4. If you had read the text to the end initially, and understood the main idea, the second time round when you reach the blanks, answer “popping” may occur. This happens because you have read English structures and collocations many times and your mind often supplies the right word based on your past reading experiences.
5. Work through the text blank by blank. Decide what the blank is asking for. Is it a grammar item or verb collocation? Is it a vocabulary item at the sentence level? Is it a connector or referent? Is it a subject pronoun or possessive pronoun?
When you’ve done that, work backwards by eliminating the wrong answers to double check if its correct. Ask yourself the following: What does the blank NOT want? Sometimes, by knowing what doesn’t fit the blank will help you to find what does.
If you were not able to decide in the first place, you can still work backwards and choose between the remaining answer choices to get the right answer.
6. Finally, re-read the text with the answer choices you’ve selected in the blanks. By doing so you may catch a wrong answer even though it seemed right at the time you selected it. That’s a minute well spent if you catch and correct a foolish mistake in the cloze reading. One minute could literally mean the difference between pass and fail.
|
