Cloze Test Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The word is fell: he slipped and fell.

Slipped and fell is the natural sequence, and the passage confirms it later: the boy said he had fallen because of his shoes.

He would hardly have laughed after slipping in the water, and shouted or ran does not fit the narrator rushing to his aid, nor the boy's later explanation for falling.

Answer: A

The word is help: I quickly ran to help him.

The boy has just fallen in the water, and he then thanks the narrator, which shows the narrator went to his aid.

Stop and scold do not fit a boy who has fallen, nor his thanks. Call him makes little sense when the narrator ran up to him.

Answer: D

The word is loose: his shoes were too loose.

Shoes that are too loose slip on the foot and make a person lose grip, especially on a wet road, so they explain his fall.

Big shoes may feel loose, but loose names the fault that makes a foot slide. Tight and small describe shoes that pinch, which would not by themselves make him slip.

Answer: C

The word is avoid: to walk carefully next time to avoid accidents.

Walking carefully is a way of preventing accidents, so the verb must mean keeping them from happening.

Make and cause say the opposite, and face accidents would mean meeting them rather than escaping them.

Answer: B

The correct pair is 'unpleasant; questions'. The first blank is part of the list 'pleasant sounds and ____ sounds', so it needs the opposite of pleasant, and unpleasant fits. The second blank follows the series of questions in the passage (Where does sound come from? How does it get to your ears?), so 'questions about sound' fits and acoustics is the study of such questions.

'Horrid' is much stronger than needed, 'friendly' is not the opposite of pleasant for sounds, and 'repellent' is an odd choice. Also, 'demands', 'quizzes' and 'suspicions' do not fit questions about how sound works. Only the second option makes sense at both blanks.

Answer: A

The correct pair is 'stacked; accident'. A woodcutter chopping branches would put the small branches in one pile and the large ones in another, so 'stacked' fits the sentence. Then the next sentence says he dropped his axe into the deep river, which was not intended, so it happened 'by accident'.

'Crammed' and 'squeezed' suggest forcing things into a small space, not piling them up neatly. The words 'disaster', 'calamity' and 'design' do not fit 'By ____, he dropped his axe': a disaster or calamity is a great misfortune, and 'by design' means on purpose, which is the opposite of what the story needs. So the first option is correct.

Answer: D

The correct pair is 'talented; creating'. Ada Lovelace was a gifted mathematician, so 'talented' fits the first blank, and Charles Babbage was responsible for creating one of the earliest mechanical computers, which fits the second.

'Imprudent' means not wise, and 'ravaging' means laying waste, so the first option makes nonsense of the sentence. 'Cultured; trashing' makes no sense for a computer, and in 'innate; establishing' the first word does not fit a mathematician well. Only the fourth option gives sense at both blanks.

Answer: D

The words are blow, scene.

The first blank follows 'began to', which takes the base form of the verb: 'the wind began to blow strongly'. The second blank is a thing the sailors admired on the horizon at sunset: a golden scene, meaning a view.

Blew is the past tense and cannot follow 'to'. Blue is a colour, not a verb. Seen is the past participle of 'see' and cannot be the object of 'admire'. Only one option has both the base-form verb and the noun meaning a view.