Fill in the Blanks Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The correct choice is curse, over, keep, but. 'A blessing or a curse' needs a noun after 'a', so 'cursing' is wrong. 'Breathe in over 10,000 litres' means more than that quantity, and 'between' would need two things. 'Try to keep the air clean' takes the base form, not 'keeping'. The final blank links the food that can be seen with the air that cannot, so a contrast word 'but' is needed rather than 'because' or 'since'. 'A blessing or a curse' needs a noun that is the opposite of 'blessing', which is 'curse'.

Answer: D

The right choice is sources, most, effects, affected. 'Several sources' is a countable plural, 'one of the most important' is the superlative form that the sentence needs, and 'harmful effects' needs the noun 'effects', since 'affects' is a verb. 'The worst affected persons' needs the adjective 'affected', not 'effected'. 'Many' and 'much' fail in the second blank, and 'affects' or 'effected' fail in the last two. Among the options, only the fourth keeps all four blanks grammatical: 'sources' (plural noun), 'most' (superlative), 'effects' (noun) and 'affected' (adjective).

Answer: C

The correct choice is many, message, choose, electronic. 'Many copies' is correct because 'copies' is countable. 'To force the message on people' is the sense intended, and 'massage' is a different word. After 'would not otherwise' the verb takes its base form, so 'choose' fits and 'chosen' does not. 'Electronic junk mail' needs the adjective 'electronic', not the noun 'electronics', and 'much' cannot go with a plural noun. The second blank needs a noun, the third a verb in the base form and the fourth an adjective, and only the third option supplies a noun, a base verb and an adjective in those places.

Answer: B

The idiom is 'burst into flames'. 'Burst in' means to enter suddenly and does not take 'flames'. 'Burst onto' is used for appearing suddenly, as on a scene. 'Bursts out' has a third person singular verb that does not agree with 'The jeep crashed and', which is in the past tense. Only 'burst into' completes the sentence correctly. The same phrase appears in 'the car burst into flames', which is the common use of the idiom after a crash.

Answer: C

The right order is sent, cent, scent. The friend 'sent' (past tense of send) a gift, the gift was worth 99 'cent', and it was imported 'scent', meaning perfume. The words are homophones, so only their meanings fix the order. 'Sent' cannot be the object, 'scent' cannot be the verb, and 'cent' cannot be the gift, so the other orders do not make sense. In the sentence 'sent' is the verb, 'cent' the unit of money and 'scent' the perfume, so each of these three words fits only one blank.

Answer: C

The phrase is bear with: the chairman asked the shareholders to bear with him.

To bear with someone is to be patient with them, which fits a chairman facing aggrieved shareholders. Bear here is the verb meaning to tolerate or endure.

Bare means to uncover or expose, so 'bare with' and 'bare' are homophone errors. Bore is the past tense of bear (or a verb meaning to drill or to weary someone), and 'requested ... to bore with him' is ungrammatical after 'to', which needs the base form.

Answer: D

The blanks take complemented, complimented.

Complement means to go well with something or complete it, so a dress that suits its wearer complemented her. Compliment means to praise, so the onlookers complimented her on her appearance. The two verbs sound the same and differ by one letter, which is the whole test.

'Complemented' in the second blank would say the people completed her appearance, not that they praised it. 'Complimented' in the first blank would have the dress praising her. That rules out every pairing except the one that uses complemented first and complimented second.

Answer: A

The word is undiminished.

The sentence turns on though: the judge's standing was shaken by false allegations, though it still remained something. A concessive clause sets up a contrast, so the blank must say that the standing survived the attack intact. Undiminished, not reduced in any way, gives exactly that contrast.

'Damaged' and 'uncertain' agree with 'shaken' instead of contrasting with it, so the 'though' would make no sense. 'Illegal' does not describe a person's standing in a community at all, and the allegations were false.

Answer: B

The blank takes the possessive determiner your: “Send your contributions at the earliest.”

The word in the blank must qualify the noun contributions, so it has to be a possessive form. Your is the possessive of you.

You are and its contraction you’re are subject and verb, which make no sense before a noun here (“Send you are contributions”). Yore is an archaic noun meaning long ago, as in “days of yore”, and only sounds like your. The question tests exactly this set of homophones.

Answer: C

The best fit is (i) down (ii) out (iii) for (iv) on.

Each blank completes an idiom with 'head': to keep one's head down is to stay quiet and avoid attention or distraction; to head out is to set off (here, to bat); to have a head for something is to have a natural aptitude for it; and a cool head on one's shoulders means calm good sense.

'Head down to bat' does not mean setting off to bat, 'a head on batting' is not idiomatic, and 'a cool head for his shoulders' makes no sense. Keeping one's head 'on' before batting is also not the idiom intended. Only the combination down, out, for, on gives four correct idioms.