Choose the word that best satisfies sentence meaning and logic.
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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.
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
Read the whole sentence out loud with the word dropped in. If it sounds wrong, it is wrong.
The word comes straight after "so", which means it has to describe the path itself, not how something was done.
Two of the cards are the right kind of word. Pick the one whose meaning explains why you had to stop and rest.
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
Never pick the word you like best. Pick the word the rest of the sentence has already forced.
Two of the three choices are traps: one is far too mild for what is happening, one is contradicted by a line further on.
Read past the gap before you choose. The clue is often in the next clause, not the one you are staring at.
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.
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.
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. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. 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.
The skill map draws the line here: One gap or a linked pair with one coherent context. A question past that line is testing a different named verbal reasoning skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
Use Mind the Gap and Redacted Files, embedded on this page. They are the exercises the skill map attaches to complete a verbal context gap, they run in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. Each also has its own link, so you can send one to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
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.
