Multiple Choice Cloze

Multiple choice cloze is worth 5 marks of the twenty given for Language in Use, a quarter of the section. There is nothing to write here: every gap comes with four options, and you tick one of them.

The text and the first gap

This is a teaching text, not an exam text. In the exam all ten gaps sit in one text that is considerably longer than the one below. The text here is short on purpose: ten gaps in a row inside a long text is partly a test of stamina, and stamina is what the trainer builds, not an article.

The Ravensholt Picture House closed in 2018. The (0) ___ film was shown on a wet Tuesday in November, and after that the doors stayed shut for three years. Then Nils Bauer, a retired projectionist, wrote to every household in the village, and the letter (1) ___ enough money to reopen the hall. He had asked each family (2) ___ fifty pounds, and more than two hundred families paid. The building (3) ___ by the village itself now, and the profits go into a fund for the roof. Volunteers rebuilt the seats themselves, (4) ___ the wiring had to be left to an electrician. They also (5) ___ great care of the projector, which is older than the roof above it. Bauer, (6) ___ father had run the place in the 1960s, keeps the old reels in his kitchen. (7) ___ the roof still leaks in two places, the hall opens every Friday evening. Every penny it takes is spent (8) ___ repairs.

The gap numbered 0 comes already ticked for you on the real paper. That is not a kindness of ours, it is the exam page itself: it shows the model answer and carries no marks.

The tick is on last. All four words are about lateness, and the dictionary is no help at all here: what separates them is what stands beside them. and after that the doors stayed shut tells you this is the final screening in the history of the hall, not the most recent one. Latest would be right if the hall were still running.

Now it is your turn. Eight gaps from this text, and two more at the end from a different one.

The rule and the table

You solved the gap, and most likely you read the sentence first and then worked through the options one by one. That is where the feeling that this task is long comes from: four options means reading one sentence four times.

The opposite order pays better. Read the four options first, and they will tell you what the question is. The set posted / opened / raised / reached is four different words, so the question is about the word. Four prepositions ask about a preposition. Four forms of one verb ask about the form. You have the diagnosis before you read the sentence, and after that you go into the sentence looking for one specific thing rather than for anything that fits.

There are four families you will meet again and again, plus a fifth that turns up now and then. Here is each of them: first how you recognise it in the option list, then where in the sentence the answer sits.

Four different words. The commonest family: four content words, each with a partner of its own. Set pairs such as take care and make a decision belong here too. The neighbour decides: the word on the left that the gap hangs off, or the word on the right that the gap takes. The meaning of an option decides nothing by itself, because all four of them have one.

One word in four forms. Instantly recognisable: the options repeat the same verb and change only its shell: owns, is owned, was owned, owned. All four mean the same, so meaning will not separate them, and the answer lies in the grammar: tense, number, and who acts as against who is acted upon.

Four prepositions. A set like for / about / after / from. The preposition is not chosen by meaning here: it is glued to the word in front of the gap and arrives with it from the dictionary. Ask for, spend on, depend on are single units, not a verb plus a meaningful preposition.

Four conjunctions or linkers. Although, because, after, as long as. A linker describes the relation between two halves of a sentence, so both halves have to be read. One half is never enough to pick the right one: the half before the gap sits equally happily with all four.

Now and then: relative words. Who, which, whom, whose. This family gets no rule slot in this article, but it is worth recognising so you do not go hunting for a choice of word that is not there.

Gaps 2–5

In the first gap the four options were four different words. The next sets are built differently, and the first thing to do with them is look at how they differ from one another.

You took the preposition from the neighbouring word rather than from a translation. The next set is built quite differently: every option in it is about the same thing.

You chose the form off two neighbours on the right rather than off the meaning. The next gap gives no such clue inside one half of the sentence: both halves are already written out in full, and the question is how they stand to each other.

You picked the linker by reading both halves. The next gap is about a word again, except this time the deciding neighbour stands to the right rather than the left.

Gaps 6–8

Four gaps down, and every time the four options named the question before you read the sentence. In the next gap the rule works the same way, even though the set itself looks unfamiliar.

You recognised the less familiar set and spent a second on it. Next comes an entirely ordinary set again, and it will make you work on more than one half of the sentence.

You read the relation between the halves all the way to the full stop. The last gap of this text is the opposite: one neighbouring word settles it, and the rest of the sentence can be left unread.

The last two gaps, a new text

Same format, unfamiliar text. In the exam all ten gaps sit in a single text, but the moves do not depend on the text, and there is no point getting used to one story.

The open-air pool at Hallerby is older still. Every winter since 1936 it (9) ___ by hand, and no machine has ever touched it. A swimming club of about forty people looks after the place, and membership (10) ___ ten pounds a year, all of which goes on paint.

You assembled the form from two clues at once. The last gap is settled by a single neighbour again, except this neighbour stands to the left of the gap rather than the right.

Apostrophe or not: say it in full

Now and then all four options are short words that sound almost alike, and one or two of them carry an apostrophe. This one comes from a news story about a rescue dog in Mexico.

If you hesitated between the first two, that is the trap this set is built for: the apostrophe looks like the sign of belonging, because in the navy's account it is one. An apostrophe in a short word usually joins two words, so say each option in full, and remember that words which show whose something is, like its, their, whose and your, take no apostrophe. Read aloud, the pair sorts itself out: who's is who is, so Who's ready? works and Who's bag is this? does not; Whose bag is this? is the owner. The same holds for they're against their and there, and for you're against your.

One more gap of the same kind, from a different text.

The apostrophe stood for has this time, not is. Saying the words in full catches both, and that is all this set ever asks.

What to take away

Three things that are not in the table and that you have just done by hand. The four options are the question, not a list of answers: they say what is being tested, and reading them first pays. Reading the sentence to the end is not always necessary, and the options settle that too: a preposition is fetched from the neighbour on the left, while a linker demands both halves. And never choose by the letter: nothing on the paper says that one letter comes up more often than another, whereas an empty box returns zero for certain.

Four articles the gaps pointed to today:

Word choice: the commonest set in this task, and how to drop two candidates out of four Prepositions: the word on the left and its own preposition Connectors: four relations between the halves of a sentence Passive: who acts and who is acted upon Editing: the neighbouring Language in Use task where a tick can be the answer