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Verbal Reasoning · Language

Complete a verbal context gap

Choose the word that best satisfies sentence meaning and logic.

Practise it now

Only one of these words belongs in the gap. Keep it, and throw the rest away.

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A worked example

One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.

Reading the clue before choosing

Worked example: find the clue in the sentence, then see why only one of these words matches it.

All four words are the same kind of word. Only one of them matches the clue.

A … of parents stretched all the way round the school gate.

Choices for the gap: trickle, swarm, queue, flood.

Answer: queue

How you get there

The sentence says "stretched all the way round the school gate", and "queue" means a line of people waiting, so it is the one word that explains it. "swarm" means a large moving group of insects; "flood" means a very large amount arriving at once; "trickle" means a very thin flow, and none of those fits the clue.

Why the other answers tempt

Every option is the same kind of word and every option reads smoothly on its own, so word class and sound decide nothing. Only the clue in the sentence does.

If they are stuck, say this

Do not choose the word that sounds nicest. Look for the detail the writer has put in on purpose, and ask which word that detail rules in.

Now do it live in Mind the Gap

How each of these 2 exercises teaches it

Mind the Gap

Only one of these words belongs in the gap. Keep it, and throw the rest away.

Cloze questions are marked on two things at once, and you have to check both. First comes word class: after "was so" the sentence needs an adjective, a word that describes the path, which is why steeply (an adverb, describing how something happens) and steepness (a noun, the name of a quality) cannot go in however sensible they sound. Second comes meaning, and that is what separates the adjectives that are left: gentle is the right class but the wrong sense, because a gentle path would not force you to rest twice, and mountainous describes a whole region rather than one path. Steep passes both tests, so it is the answer. Read the finished sentence back to yourself every time, because your ear will catch an error your eye slides over.

What to say if they get stuck

  1. Read the whole sentence out loud with the word dropped in. If it sounds wrong, it is wrong.
  2. The word comes straight after "so", which means it has to describe the path itself, not how something was done.
  3. Two of the cards are the right kind of word. Pick the one whose meaning explains why you had to stop and rest.

Open Mind the Gap on its own page to share it

Redacted Files

Four words have been censored. Decode each one using the clues around it.

This engine’s own main skill is Vocabulary in context. It practises complete a verbal context gap alongside it.

A censored word is never a guess, because the sentence around it has already narrowed the answer to one. The method has three steps. First, decide the flavour the gap needs: is this word positive or negative, mild or extreme? "Rattled like loose teeth" demands something violent, so gentle and pleasant are gone before you compare them. Second, hunt for a line that contradicts a candidate outright: the boat has gone from its mooring, so the sea cannot merely have sprinkled the steps. Third, check the register, meaning whether the word sounds like it belongs in this kind of writing about this kind of person: a keeper whose entries are ruled and dated is not careless, however tired he might be. Do those three checks and the right word is usually the only one left standing.

What to say if they get stuck

  1. Never pick the word you like best. Pick the word the rest of the sentence has already forced.
  2. Two of the three choices are traps: one is far too mild for what is happening, one is contradicted by a line further on.
  3. Read past the gap before you choose. The clue is often in the next clause, not the one you are staring at.

Open Redacted Files on its own page to share it

How complete a verbal context gap differs from the skills beside it

The same exercise practises several skills, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: choose the word that best satisfies sentence meaning and logic, and it stops where one gap or a linked pair with one coherent context.

  • Classify a word in context

    Identify the grammatical function of one highlighted word in its sentence. Classify contextual function, not a word in isolation.

  • Interpret a word in context

    Infer the meaning of one word from its sentence and passage context. Excludes recalling a definition without context.

Questions parents ask about complete a verbal context gap

Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.

Choose the word that best satisfies sentence meaning and logic. It is one of 26 named verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the language strand, and this page carries 2 interactive exercises that practise it.

Verbal reasoning is a set of question types, not a subject to revise

A free diagnostic works out which of the codes, analogies, word puzzles and logic types are already secure, and which are not.

Start the free 11+ diagnostic