A Complete Example: 20 Gaps in a Row

So far you've practiced single sentences with one or two gaps. The real onSET gives you whole texts with around twenty gaps in a row, and the gap types are mixed: sometimes a vocabulary stem, sometimes an ending, sometimes a small function word. This article walks through one complete sample text exactly as you'd see it on the test, gap by gap, using the routine from C-Test Strategy.

Quick rule: First sentence free, then every second word halved. Read in stretches (sentence by sentence), not gap by gap in isolation: the frame does the work.

First the whole text: solve it like the real thing

This is exactly how an onSET text sits in front of you: the first sentence complete, then twenty halved words, all visible at once. Give yourself five minutes, work in whatever order suits you (easy gaps first, hard ones on a second pass), and note your score. The gap-by-gap resolution follows right after.

Immer mehr Unternehmen ermöglichen ihren Mitarbeitern das Arbeiten von zu Hause aus. Diese Entwic hat si während de letzten Jah deutlich beschl, und vie Firmen muss ihre Ablä anpassen. Man Angestellte schä die ne Flexibilität vor allem deshalb, we sie ih Arbeitszeit fre einteilen kön. Andere vermi den dire Kontakt z Kollegen un fühlen si isoliert.

Your score, sorted by gap type

The twenty gaps in this text fall into three groups. Check which one your misses sit in, and go straight there.

Vocabulary, 4 gaps (Entwic___, beschl___, Ablä___, vermi___): the word wasn't recognizable from its opening. That's fixed by vocabulary, not by grammar. Vocabulary Strategy
Endings, 7 gaps (Jah___, muss___, schä___, ne___, fre___, kön___, dire___): the word was clear, the form wasn't. Verb Endings & Prefixes Adjective Endings Comparative & Superlative
Function words, 9 gaps (si___ twice, de___, vie___, Man___, we___, ih___, z___, un___): the shortest gaps and the cheapest points. Function Words & Connectors

From here on, the same text is resolved in stages.

The first sentence: always free

The first sentence of an onSET text is never gapped. It gives you the topic and the first vocabulary, at no cost:

Immer mehr Unternehmen ermöglichen ihren Mitarbeitern das Arbeiten von zu Hause aus.

Topic: work life, specifically remote work. Activate this word field now (see Vocabulary Strategy) before the text continues.

Paragraph 1: eight gaps, three gap types

Diese Entwic hat si während de letzten Jah deutlich beschl, und vie Firmen muss ihre Ablä anpassen.

Go through them one by one: Entwic can barely be anything but Entwicklung given "Unternehmen" and "remote work." si before "während" is the reflexive pronoun sich (hat sich beschleunigt). de before "letzten Jahre" is the definite article, here der (während der letzten Jahre). Jah completes to Jahre, matching the plural "letzten." beschl is the participle beschleunigt, carried by the subject "die Entwicklung." vie becomes viele, plural before "Firmen." muss takes the third-person-plural preterite ending: mussten. And Ablä completes to Abläufe, the object of "anpassen."

Paragraph 2: seven gaps, including two verb endings

Man Angestellte schä die ne Flexibilität vor allem deshalb, we sie ih Arbeitszeit fre einteilen kön.

Man before "Angestellte" becomes Manche (plural, no single article needed). schä with the plural subject "Angestellte" takes -tzen: schätzen. ne before "Flexibilität" (feminine) becomes neue. we introduces the reason: weil. ih before "Arbeitszeit" is the possessive ihre. fre is the comparative freier (see Comparative & Superlative). And kön at the end, after the infinitive "einteilen," becomes the modal verb können.

Paragraph 3: five gaps to finish

Andere vermi den dire Kontakt z Kollegen un fühlen si isoliert.

vermi becomes vermissen, the opposite of "schätzen" in the previous sentence. dire before "Kontakt" becomes direkten (accusative, masculine). z is the fixed preposition zu (Kontakt zu jemandem). un connects the two clauses: und. And si before "fühlen ... isoliert" is again the reflexive pronoun sich.

The whole text again, without gaps

Immer mehr Unternehmen ermöglichen ihren Mitarbeitern das Arbeiten von zu Hause aus. Diese Entwicklung hat sich während der letzten Jahre deutlich beschleunigt, und viele Firmen mussten ihre Abläufe anpassen. Manche Angestellte schätzen die neue Flexibilität vor allem deshalb, weil sie ihre Arbeitszeit freier einteilen können. Andere vermissen den direkten Kontakt zu Kollegen und fühlen sich isoliert.

What these twenty gaps show

Mixed gap types in one text: vocabulary stems (Entwicklung, beschleunigt, Abläufe, Flexibilität, vermissen, direkten), function words (sich, der, viele, weil, ihre, zu, und), and endings (mussten, schätzen, können) alternate, exactly as in the real onSET.
The sentence carries the gap, not the gap by itself. Every single gap became unambiguous once the whole sentence was read.
Time budget: a text this length with twenty gaps comfortably fits five minutes if you use the routine from C-Test Strategy: read the whole sentence, then fill every gap on a second pass.

Practice this routine regularly on new texts in the trainer until it runs automatically. That's exactly the experience you'll have on the real test: you just walked through it once, start to finish, and one text is roughly an eighth of the whole onSET.

Ready for the next level? The later texts of the real test are denser than this one. That is exactly what this article's harder sibling is for: A Complete Example at C1 Level