IBPS PO Exam: English Language: Cloze Test-Study Material

Institute of Banking and Personnel Selection is all set to conduct Common Written Examination for Recruitment of Probationary Officers in Public Sector Banks of the country. The examination will be conducted on 19 October 2013, 20 October 2013, 26 October 2013 and 27 October 2013.

A total of 40 questions will come in English Language Section of IBPS PO Exam contains different topics like Reading Comprehension, Close Test, Sentence Skills, Synonyms, antonyms, etc. Jagranjosh.com, renowned educational website offers study material on Sentence Skills to help aspirants in getting ready for the upcoming IBPS PO Exam 2013..

Chapter: Fill in the Paragraph Gaps (Cloze Test)

Chapter Guidelines

The English Language Section of IBPS PO Exam includes the questions from ‘Fill in the Paragraph Gaps’ (Cloze Test). In Cloze Test, generally a passage is provided with 10 or 12 spaces. The candidates have to fill up the spaces with most appropriate words/phrases provided in options. These types of questions are asked to judge the candidates vocabulary power, grammatical knowledge, and common sense.

While answering these questions, the candidate should read the entire passage once to get the theme as sometimes more than one options seems appropriate for blank. Complete passage reading will help the candidate to choose the best option. Good Knowledge of Grammar, command over vocabulary and little bit of common sense will be ideal for attempting these questions.

Introduction:

Cloze test is a type of comprehension exercise in which the reader is required to supply words that have been omitted from the text (passage). Other names of this exercise are:

I. Fill in the Blanks in passages and comprehensions, and

II. Choosing words in a running passage to maintain the sequence of various sentences in the paragraphs.

In the examination you will find a small passage with numbered blanks. Below the passage these numbers are repeated and against each number four or five choices of word are given. You are required to choose an appropriate word from the given choices to fill in the respective blanks in the passage. This test is designed to evaluate your knowledge of words and their correct grammatical usage so as to keep the meaning of the passage intact.

Strategy to Tackle Cloze Tests

To tackle the Cloze test, it is advisable to quickly read through the passage before starting to fill in the blanks. This gives you a fair idea about the content of the passage and with this background choosing appropriate words from the provided answer choices becomes easier.

Example

Tibet                  up images of a mystic land. Snow-capped mountain peaks pierce the blue sky and fierce chilly winds sweep the rolling grasslands. Maroon-robed Buddhist monks pray in remote monasteries and                    horsemen pound the rugged earth. People in this high plateau perform punishing rituals like prostrating hundreds of miles in tattered clothes on pilgrimage. Spirits, spells and flying apparitions are part of the Tibetan world. In short, Tibet remains an exotica. Such images are largely the result of books by Western travellers and explorers in the last century, which helped in keeping the mystique alive. And when the Communist rulers took over Tibet in the 1950s and began                  Chinese language and culture on the people, Tibet's own history started to                     in the background. Thus, the only books available in English to Tsering Wangmo Dhompa as a young girl growing up in India and Nepal as a refugee                  those written by Westerners, and so she came to view the country as a forbidden land, a place where fantasy and fable collaborated against a dramatic backdrop of mountains, black magic and people with strange customs and appearances.

1. (a) makes                      (b) conjures     (c) puts            (d) toil.

2. (a) sturdy                       (b) wobbly       (c) handsome    (d) herculean.

3. (a) implementing            (b) evading      (c) imposing     (d) experimenting.

4. (a) amplify                     (b) stretch        (c) die             (d) recede.

5. (a) are                           (b) have been  (c) was             (d) were.

Answers and Explanations:

1. (b). ‘Makes up’ would mean create by altering or modifying such as ‘making up a story.’ ‘Puts up’ is also an incorrect expression here as it means ‘stays.’ ‘Toil up’ is again incorrect option as it means to put hard work into. Option (b) ‘conjures’ is the right answer which means ‘to recall.’

2. (a). ‘Sturdy’ means ‘with strong built up’, ‘wobbly’ means ‘unsteady’, ‘herculean’ means ‘having great strength.’, ‘handsome’ means ‘good looking.’ Option (a) is the most appropriate here as a horseman is generally visualized as the one having strong built up.

3. (c). Since the sentence talks about communist rulers ‘taking over’, option (c) ‘imposing’ which means ‘to thrust.’

4. (d). ‘Amplify’ and ‘stretch’ both mean an increase. ‘Die’ would be a little extreme word here. ‘Recede’ which means ‘to move back’ matches up with the word background used in the sentence.

5. (e). The correct tense form here would be option (d) i.e.; ‘were.’

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