Fill in the Blanks Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The word that fits is hurtful.

A 'sharp tongue' means a habit of speaking harshly or cuttingly. The sentence says this tendency can occasionally 'turn' into something worse, and the natural completion is that her words become hurtful, causing emotional pain. Here 'turn' means 'become', as in 'the weather turned cold'.

'Turn left' is a direction and has nothing to do with speech. 'Methodical' means orderly and systematic, not a quality a sharp tongue turns into. 'Vital' means essential or full of life, which does not fit a warning about harsh speech.

Answer: A

The blanks take could have, been: 'I could have made arrangements had I been informed earlier.'

This is a third conditional, about an unreal past situation. The 'if' clause is inverted: 'had I been informed' means 'if I had been informed', and it needs the past participle 'been' to make the passive 'had been informed'. The main clause takes a modal with the perfect infinitive: 'could have made'.

'Would have, being' breaks the 'if' clause: 'had I being informed' is not a verb form. 'Had, have' gives 'I had made arrangements had I have informed', which is ungrammatical and changes the meaning. 'Had been, been' gives 'I had been made arrangements', a passive that makes no sense with 'arrangements' as its object.

Answer: D

The correct word is easier.

The sentence compares two things, getting to the top and staying on top, and the word 'than' calls for a comparative adjective. 'Easy' forms its comparative with -er: easy, easier, easiest.

'More easy' doubles up on the comparison for a short adjective that already takes -er. 'Much easy' is ungrammatical, since 'much' can only intensify a comparative ('much easier'). 'Easiest' is the superlative, used when comparing three or more things, and cannot be followed by 'than'.

Answer: A

The word that completes the sentence is harbours: apparent lifelessness harbours dormant life.

To harbour is to hold or shelter something within, often hidden. The sentence says that what looks lifeless, such as a seed or a frozen pond, actually contains life that is only dormant, so it hides that life inside it.

Leads to would mean lifelessness causes dormant life, which is not the sense. Supports suggests active help, and affects means acting on something; neither expresses dormant life being held concealed within.

Answer: D

The word is between.

The sentence places the green spot in relation to two things, the ocean and the hills, on either side of it. 'Between' is the preposition for a position separating two named things.

'Through' describes movement across something, 'in' would need a single containing place ('in the hills'), and 'at' marks a point location; none fits a place lying between two features.

Answer: D

The best match is (i) out (ii) down (iii) by (iv) for.

She 'stands out' as an author, meaning she is conspicuous; she is noted for 'standing down', stepping aside, as an honorary fellow; she did so after she 'stood by' her writings, meaning she supported them; and those writings 'stand for' the freedom of speech, meaning they represent or champion it.

'Stood in her writings' and 'stand in the freedom of speech' are not idiomatic, and 'stands down as an author' or 'standing out as a fellow' reverse the sense of the sentence.

Answer: D

The pair is friends, keenly.

"One of my best ..." must be followed by a plural noun, because "one of" picks a member out of a group: one of my best friends. The second blank modifies the verb "felt", so it needs an adverb, keenly (intensely).

"Friend" is singular and breaks the "one of" construction. "Keen" and "keener" are adjectives and cannot describe how he felt the loss.

Answer: D

The debate became heated.

As the speakers grow agitated the argument becomes angry and intense, and "heated" is the standard word for an argument in that state.

"Lukewarm" means half-hearted, the opposite of agitated. "Poetic" and "forgiving" describe style and attitude that agitation would work against, so neither fits the cause-and-effect the sentence sets up.

Answer: A

The pair is principle, principal.

"Many hands make light work" is a rule or maxim, and the noun for that is a principle. The person who heads a school is its principal.

The two words sound alike, which is the trap. "Principal, principle" swaps them; "principle, principle" would make the school's head a rule, and "principal, principal" would make the maxim a person (or a sum of money).

Answer: C

The word is frugality.

Frugality is careful, economical use of money and resources. It is easily mistaken for miserliness (meanness about spending), and the sentence draws exactly that line: she is economical, yet always willing to help those in need, so she is not a miser.

Cleanliness, punctuality and greatness have nothing to do with spending, so none of them could be "confused with miserliness", which is the clue the sentence gives.