Fill in the Blanks Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The sentence needs had been playing.

The rain 'suddenly started' at a moment in the past, and the playing was already in progress at that moment. An action continuing up to a past point is expressed by the past perfect continuous: 'We had been playing tennis in the lawn when it suddenly started to rain.'

'Have been playing' is the present perfect continuous, which links the action to the present and clashes with the past tense 'started'. 'Would have been playing' describes a hypothetical situation, and 'could be playing' a present possibility, neither of which fits a narrative of what actually happened.

Answer: A

The answer is exaggerates; engenders.

The manager's next sentence, 'False claims are not going to help', tells us the first blank describes inflating the figures: to exaggerate the numbers is to overstate them. The second sentence states what honesty produces, and engender means to give rise to or create, so 'Honesty engenders trust' completes the thought.

The other pairs fail. 'Excels the numbers' is not idiomatic and is not a false claim. 'Aggravates the numbers' misuses aggravate (to make worse), and honesty does not 'alleviate' trust, since alleviate means to lessen something bad. 'Diminishes' would be understating, not a false boast, and honesty does not 'eliminate' trust.

Answer: C

The sentence reads If I were you, I wouldn't buy that laptop.

'If I were you' is a second conditional: an imagined situation, marked by the past subjunctive were. The main clause of a second conditional takes would plus the bare verb, here in the negative because the reason given is that the laptop is too expensive.

'won't buy' and 'shan't buy' are future forms, which belong to a first conditional ('If I go, I won't buy'), not to an unreal 'If I were'. 'would buy' has the right form but the wrong sense: nobody advises buying something because it is much too expensive.

Answer: C

The word is errant.

Someone is warned repeatedly to correct behaviour that is wrong, and errant means straying from the proper course, erring or misbehaving. 'Failed to correct his errant behaviour' fits exactly.

Rational, reasonable and good describe behaviour that would need no correction, so being warned to correct it would make no sense.

Answer: A

The correct sequence is a; a; an.

The choice between a and an depends on the first sound of the next word, not its first letter. 'Younger' begins with a consonant sound, so 'a younger brother'. 'University' begins with a 'yoo' (consonant y) sound, so 'a university', not 'an university'. 'Honorable' begins with a silent h and so a vowel sound, so 'an honorable man'.

'The' in the first blank would point to a brother already identified, which the sentence does not do, and every option with 'an' before 'university' or 'a' before 'honorable' breaks the sound rule.

Answer: A

It is a figurative statement.

Archimedes was not proposing an actual experiment; no lever or fulcrum could be placed to move the Earth. He was using the image to express the power of the lever principle, which makes it figurative language, meaning beyond the literal words.

A literal statement means exactly what it says, which this one does not. Collateral means secondary or accompanying, and a figurine is a small statue; neither describes a kind of statement, though 'figurine' is a sound-alike trap for 'figurative'.

Answer: B

The blank takes a security guard at the university.

The indefinite article a fits the job: he was one of several security guards, not a unique one, so “a security guard” is right and “the security guard” would imply there was only one. The definite article fits the place: “the university” refers to a particular, known university, the one where he worked.

“The security guard at a university” reverses the two articles. “A security guard at university” drops the article before a countable noun used for a specific institution, which reads as British “at university” (studying there), a different meaning. “The security guard at the university” wrongly suggests the university had a single guard.

Answer: C

The word is resolve.

The sentence contrasts an initial hesitation with something that 'never wavered', and that something is followed by 'to contribute'. Resolve, firm determination, fits both: 'his resolve to contribute ... never wavered'.

Ambivalence means having mixed feelings, which is close to hesitation rather than its opposite, and one does not speak of ambivalence 'never wavering'. Satisfaction does not take 'to contribute' and does not describe steadiness of purpose. Revolve is a verb meaning to turn round, and cannot follow 'Rehman's'.

Answer: A

The word is meandering.

The sentence sets the blank against 'organized ones': the investigation that only 'sometimes' yields new facts is the opposite of an organized one. Meandering means wandering without a fixed course, which is exactly that contrast.

Systematic and consistent describe organized work, so they would make the 'but' meaningless. Timely is about when the investigation happens, not how it is organized, so it does not answer the contrast either.

Answer: B

The blank takes nearly.

'Nearly missed the train' means the speakers came close to missing it but still caught it, which fits arriving late at the station. Nearly is the adverb meaning 'almost' and it modifies the verb missed.

'Near' is mainly an adjective or an adverb of place ('near the station') and does not mean 'almost' before a verb in standard usage. 'Utterly' means completely and is used with absolute words ('utterly lost'), not with a near-miss. 'Mostly' means for the greater part, which cannot apply to the single event of missing a train.