This section poses a great challenge to many learners country over yet ironically the KCPE English test has a bulk of questions where learners complete given passages by picking the most appropriate words to fill in the blank spaces left in the passage.
Learners who read widely on several topics and are armed with a range of word use have the advantage here. There is no other shortcut here.
Approach to English cloze test
Read the passage without any attempt to fill in to get the context and content of the passage. This will help you place the passage and therefore get the appropriate diction needed to fill the blanks. Remember the passage itself will give direction and suggest the words you should fill.
Read the passage again as you attempt to fill it in pencil. Do it a third time as you confirm the answers in ink.
You must remember that each blank space requires just one word.
Correctly figure out the word class required in the blank.ie shall it be a noun, verb, conjunction, adjective, adverb, pronoun, article? The words shall spread almost evenly across these classes.
The word must be correctly spelt.
In the case of verbs, the tense must be correct and there should be an agreement with the subject.
In the case of nouns then the number must also be correct. (singularity and plurality)
The words must be well punctuated. They must begin in capital letters if they start a sentence and in small letters if they come within the sentence.
Avoid giving alternative answers. It will be upon the examiners during coordination before marking to agree on the alternative synonyms that will be accepted during the live marking.
The possibility of two or more blank spaces sharing a similar word is always low. So check and confirm that no word is repeated.
Punctuation marks such as full stops, commas etc are not words and should therefore not be filled in the blanks.
Fill in the blanks with English words that can be found in the dictionary
The secret in passing a cloze test is simply wide reading and practice. Fill in as many more as you can. Your friends may lift up paragraphs and rewrite them leaving out some words and asking you to fill them. You can as well do it just yourself.
