Cloze Test
174 CDS English past-year questions from 14 papers, 2017 to 2025, with answers and worked solutions.
- Difficulty: 66 easy · 100 moderate · 8 hard.
- Most-asked subtopics: Verb Forms in the Blank (38), Meaning from the Passage (32), Reading the Blank's Slot (31).
- Updated 25 August 2026.
- Set · 1 questionDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage CLOZE COMPREHENSION 2 So the ___(56)___ is that in the present social structure, discipline has become an important factor because we want large numbers of children ___(57)___ together and ___(58)___ Educated to be what ? To be bank clerks or super salesmen, capitalists or commissars. When you are a superman ___(59)___ as/or a super governor or a subtle parliamentary debater, what have you done ? You are probably very clever, full of facts. Anybody can pick up facts; but we are human beings, not factual machines, not ___(60)___ routine automatons. But again, sirs, you are not interested. You are listening to me and ___(61)___ each other, you are not going to do a thing about radically changing the education system; so it will drag on ___(62)___ a monstrous revolution, which will merely be another substitution – there will be much more control because the totalitarian government knows how to shape the minds and hearts of the people, they ___(63)___ the trick.
#1Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage CLOZE COMPREHENSION 1 This cultural form ___(49)___ from Japan has a name which means ‘whimsical or impromptu pictures’. It ___(50)___ in existence since the 12th century when the first ___(51)___ for this art form was seen. Since the language itself is read from right to left, the books with ___(52)___ art form follow the same pattern. ___(53)___ when English translations were made, they flipped the pictures and published it. This ___(54)___ the purists as it showed left-handed samurai, who did not exist in the original book. Hence, nowadays even English translations follow ___(55)___ right to left format. The name of this art form is Manga.
#2Reading the Blank's Slot
#3Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage CLOZE COMPREHENSION 2 So the ___(56)___ is that in the present social structure, discipline has become an important factor because we want large numbers of children ___(57)___ together and ___(58)___ Educated to be what ? To be bank clerks or super salesmen, capitalists or commissars. When you are a superman ___(59)___ as/or a super governor or a subtle parliamentary debater, what have you done ? You are probably very clever, full of facts. Anybody can pick up facts; but we are human beings, not factual machines, not ___(60)___ routine automatons. But again, sirs, you are not interested. You are listening to me and ___(61)___ each other, you are not going to do a thing about radically changing the education system; so it will drag on ___(62)___ a monstrous revolution, which will merely be another substitution – there will be much more control because the totalitarian government knows how to shape the minds and hearts of the people, they ___(63)___ the trick.
#4Reading the Blank's Slot
#5Reading the Blank's Slot
Done a few? Here’s your next move
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: Each of the following passages in this section has some blank spaces with four words or groups of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage Comprehension—I The founders of the Indian Republic ____(18)____ the farsightedness and the courage to commit ____(19)____ to two major innovations of historical significance in nation-building and social engineering : first, to ____(20)____ a democratic and civil ____(21)____ society among illiterate people and, second, to undertake economic development ____(22)____ democratic political structure. Hitherto, in all societies in which an economic takeoff or an early industrial and agricultural ____(23)____ had occurred, effective democracy, especially from the working people, had been extremely limited. On the other hand, ____(24)____ the beginning, India was committed to ____(25)____ democratic and civil libertarian political order and a representative system of government ____(26)____ on free and fair elections to be conducted on the basis of universal adult franchise.
#6Reading the Blank's Slot
#7Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: Each of the following passages in this section has some blank spaces with four words or groups of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage Comprehension—II Ecology, in a very simple term, is a science that ____(27)____ the interdependent, mutually reactive and interconnected relationships ____(28)____ the organisms and ____(29)____ physical environment on the one hand and among the organisms on the other hand. ____(30)____ the term ‘ecology’ was first coined and used by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1869, a few conceptual terms ____(31)____ already proposed to reveal relationships ____(32)____ organisms and their environment. For example, French zoologist I. G. Hilaire used the term ‘ethology’ ____(33)____ the study of the relations of ____(34)____ organisms within the family and society in the aggregate and in the community. British naturalist St. George Jackson Mivart proposed the term ‘hexicology’ with regard to the study of the relations ____(35)____ living creatures to other organisms and their environment as regards the nature of the locality they frequent, the temperatures and the ____(36)____ of light which suit them, and their relations to other organisms as enemies, rivals, or accidental and involuntary benefactors.
#8Reading the Blank's Slot
#9Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 4 questionsDirections: select the word group that fits each blank Passage The difficult thing about ___(91)___ the science of habits is that most people, when they hear about this field of research, ___(92)___ to know the secret formula for quickly changing any habit. If scientists have discovered how ___(93)___ patterns work, then it stands to reason that they ___(94)___ have also found a recipe for rapid change, right ? If only it ___(95)___ that easy. It’s not ___(96)___ formulas don’t exist. The problem is that there isn’t one formula for ___(97)___ habits. There are thousands. Individuals and habits are ___(98)___ different, and so the specifics of diagnosing and changing the patterns in our lives differ from person to ___(99)___ and behaviour to behaviour. Giving up cigarettes is different ___(100)___ curbing overeating, which is different from changing how you communicate with your spouse, ___(101)___ is different from how you prioritize tasks at work. What’s more, each person’s habits are ___(102)___ by different cravings. As a result, this book does not ___(103)___ one prescription. Rather, I hoped to deliver something else : a framework for understanding ___(104)___ habits work and a guide to experimenting with how they ___(105)___ change. Some habits yield easily to analysis and influence. Others are ___(106)___ complex and obstinate, and require prolonged study. And for others, change is a ___(107)___ that never fully concludes. But that does not ___(108)___ it can’t occur. Each chapter in this book explains a different aspect of why habits exist and how they function. The framework ___(109)___ in this section is an attempt to distil, in a ___(110)___ very basic way, the tactics that researchers have found for diagnosing and shaping habits within our own lives.
#10Reading the Blank's Slot
#11Reading the Blank's Slot
#12Reading the Blank's Slot
#13Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: select the most appropriate word for each blank Passage The polythene bags ___(101)___ non-biodegradable, i.e., they cannot be decomposed ___(102)___ micro-organisms into manure. They remain as ___(103)___ even after years. Animals that started eating waste food ___(104)___ with these polythene bags, ultimately started dying ___(105)___ their internal system was getting blocked. The Government had no alternative ___(106)___ to ban these polythene bags. It is ___(107)___ duty of the Government to look into this matter; however, it is also the duty of each individual to ___(108)___ that we ___(109)___ use polythene bags. By using these we will not only harm the environment but ourselves as well. Thus, say ‘No’ to plastic bags and contribute ___(110)___ society.
#14Reading the Blank's Slot
#15Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 4 questionsDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider the most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage It sounds like ___(71)___ great idea. People getting instantly excited when they hear ___(72)___ phrase ‘education for peace’ or the title of a course that calls itself ‘peace Education’. About a decade ago, I proposed such ___(73)___ course in my institute. The idea of a course ___(74)___ ‘peace education’ had occurred to me on the way back from one of the neighbouring countries where I met students of class IX. I could not find ___(75)___ difference ___(76)___ Indian students and their counterparts in the other country on peace ___(77)___ living together. It made me think that if one learns to live with a conflict, life grows across it like grass ___(78)___ trees. The arguments and stances children took demonstrated ___(79)___ peace comes from understanding a conflict well, not necessarily ___(80)___ solving it.
#16Reading the Blank's Slot
#17Reading the Blank's Slot
#18Reading the Blank's Slot
#19Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 3 questionsDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider the most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage CLOZE COMPOSITION Banking is ___(41)___ essential building block to reach greater prosperity and help build a better system ___(42)___ financial services can create a path out of poverty. However, big traditional banks often exclude low-income populations ___(43)___ requirements or by using historically discriminatory practices that keep ___(44)___ low-income customers ___(45)___ from formal finance. Modern lifestyles are predicated ___(46)___ debt. If you have a stable and reliable income, have a bank account with access to a range ___(47)___ modern financial products, you can manage your debts efficiently. This ___(48)___ what the entire financial system is for. But debt ___(49)___ a lifetime's trap if you don't have easy access to ___(50)___ financial products.
#20Reading the Blank's Slot
#21Reading the Blank's Slot
#22Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 1 questionDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider the most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage CLOZE COMPOSITION Bad habits such as over-eating, drinking, or smoking ___(71)___ very easy to acquire. One should fight ___(72)___ the force of habit. Even good things can be very harmful when done ___(73)___ excess. The wise man is conscious ___(74)___ his bad habits and checks them promptly. The use of tobacco has spread all ___(75)___ the world. Those who have acquired this bad habit would ___(76)___ be able to get rid of it. Alcohol, which is more common in cold countries than in warmer ones, does nobody any good and should be avoided ___(77)___ Alcohol, even if taken in small quantities, ___(78)___ to affect one's health. For the victims of alcoholism, ___(79)___ helps, but this condition cannot be cured. Symptoms of alcoholism include repeated alcohol consumption ___(80)___ related legal and health issues.
#23Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 1 questionDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider the most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the answer sheet accordingly. Passage Objectives, ideology, programmes, leadership, and organisation are important ___(81)___ of social movements. They are interdependent, ___(82)___ each other. The objectives of the movement change from ___(83)___ articular local issues to broad aims ___(84)___ social transformation. Sometimes a movement which begins with broad objectives may in the process get ___(85)___ with one or two particular issues. Ideology also ___(86)___ change. It provides direction for evolving strategies and programmes; and also keeps the participants together by developing feelings of ‘we-ness’. Various strategies and programmes are evolved to ___(87)___ the people. They ___(88)___ the movement for a long period. Leadership ___(89)___ initiates or emerges in the course of the growth of the movement plays a crucial role in ___(90)___ ideology and objectives, evolving strategies and programmes and maintaining the spirit of the participant.
#24Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 4 questionsDirections: In the following item, a CLOZE question is given with ten blanks, each with four options. Select the most appropriate word from the options which fills the blanks correctly, and mark your response in the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage It is increasingly 111. ______ that learning levels within many countries are highly unequal. This 112. ______ be happening because of institutional features of school systems, such as early streaming, regional diversity 113. ______ expenditure or political engagement, 114. ______ access to education, and non-equitable access to different types of providers. Among the developed countries, 115. ______ with more equal learning outcomes 116. ______ have better average learning outcomes, 117. ______ that appropriate interventions in the education sector may have positive effects on both equality and the quality of education. Economic inequality is associated with the distribution of 118. ______ skills among adults, although the direction of causation is unclear. Arguably, 119. ______ society will ever reach total equality in the learning outcomes of every individual. 120. ______ in learning outcomes may depend on individual ability and motivation, as well as the type of background one comes from and the types of resources one has access to.
#25Reading the Blank's Slot
#26Reading the Blank's Slot
#27Reading the Blank's Slot
#28Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 3 questionsDirections: In the following item a passage is given, in which there are ten blank spaces along with four options each for filling those blanks. Find the most appropriate word from the options provided to fill in the blanks, and mark your response on the Answer Sheet. Passage ____(111)____ by the charm of Nature around him, man has expressed his appreciation of it in works of art produced by him. This goes back to a time ____(112)____ he was still a primitive being. Art ____(113)____ a softening influence on him. The earliest paintings of the prehistoric age in the caves all over the world give us magnificent examples of the ____(114)____ eye and the trained hand in man's savage state. The colours chosen, the movement ____(115)____ and the expressions the pictures are ____(116)____ with really make us marvel, even if all of them are not of the ____(117)____ of the paintings at Altamira. The prehistoric cave paintings in India give us a picture of life in those ____(118)____ days of the early man in India. It is a great and true experience that Kalidasa expresses, when he feels that ____(119)____ the happiest man feels ____(120)____ when he sees beautiful things or hears melodious notes.
#29Reading the Blank's Slot
#30Reading the Blank's Slot
#31Reading the Blank's Slot
- Set · 1 questionDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage Whenever I go into a bank, I feel scared. Everybody and everything that I see there ___(97)___ me. As for the manager the sight ___(98)___ him simply terrifies me and ___(99)___ me want to runaway ___(100)___ I can. As soon as I ___(101)___ the door of the bank I lose my head ___(102)___ when I try to do any ___(103)___ there, I behave like an idiot. I cannot explain ___(104)___ for this but that is how it ___(105)___ has been that is how it is ___(106)___.
#32Verb Forms in the Blank
- Set · 3 questionsDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage CLOZE COMPREHENSION 1 This cultural form ___(49)___ from Japan has a name which means ‘whimsical or impromptu pictures’. It ___(50)___ in existence since the 12th century when the first ___(51)___ for this art form was seen. Since the language itself is read from right to left, the books with ___(52)___ art form follow the same pattern. ___(53)___ when English translations were made, they flipped the pictures and published it. This ___(54)___ the purists as it showed left-handed samurai, who did not exist in the original book. Hence, nowadays even English translations follow ___(55)___ right to left format. The name of this art form is Manga.
#33Verb Forms in the Blank
#34Verb Forms in the Blank
#35Verb Forms in the Blank
- Set · 3 questionsDirections: Each of the following sentences in this section has a blank space with four words or group of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage CLOZE COMPREHENSION 2 So the ___(56)___ is that in the present social structure, discipline has become an important factor because we want large numbers of children ___(57)___ together and ___(58)___ Educated to be what ? To be bank clerks or super salesmen, capitalists or commissars. When you are a superman ___(59)___ as/or a super governor or a subtle parliamentary debater, what have you done ? You are probably very clever, full of facts. Anybody can pick up facts; but we are human beings, not factual machines, not ___(60)___ routine automatons. But again, sirs, you are not interested. You are listening to me and ___(61)___ each other, you are not going to do a thing about radically changing the education system; so it will drag on ___(62)___ a monstrous revolution, which will merely be another substitution – there will be much more control because the totalitarian government knows how to shape the minds and hearts of the people, they ___(63)___ the trick.
#36Verb Forms in the Blank
#37Verb Forms in the Blank
#38Verb Forms in the Blank
- Set · 3 questionsDirections: Each of the following passages in this section has some blank spaces with four words or groups of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage Comprehension—I The founders of the Indian Republic ____(18)____ the farsightedness and the courage to commit ____(19)____ to two major innovations of historical significance in nation-building and social engineering : first, to ____(20)____ a democratic and civil ____(21)____ society among illiterate people and, second, to undertake economic development ____(22)____ democratic political structure. Hitherto, in all societies in which an economic takeoff or an early industrial and agricultural ____(23)____ had occurred, effective democracy, especially from the working people, had been extremely limited. On the other hand, ____(24)____ the beginning, India was committed to ____(25)____ democratic and civil libertarian political order and a representative system of government ____(26)____ on free and fair elections to be conducted on the basis of universal adult franchise.
#39Verb Forms in the Blank
#40Verb Forms in the Blank
#41Verb Forms in the Blank
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: Each of the following passages in this section has some blank spaces with four words or groups of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage Comprehension—II Ecology, in a very simple term, is a science that ____(27)____ the interdependent, mutually reactive and interconnected relationships ____(28)____ the organisms and ____(29)____ physical environment on the one hand and among the organisms on the other hand. ____(30)____ the term ‘ecology’ was first coined and used by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1869, a few conceptual terms ____(31)____ already proposed to reveal relationships ____(32)____ organisms and their environment. For example, French zoologist I. G. Hilaire used the term ‘ethology’ ____(33)____ the study of the relations of ____(34)____ organisms within the family and society in the aggregate and in the community. British naturalist St. George Jackson Mivart proposed the term ‘hexicology’ with regard to the study of the relations ____(35)____ living creatures to other organisms and their environment as regards the nature of the locality they frequent, the temperatures and the ____(36)____ of light which suit them, and their relations to other organisms as enemies, rivals, or accidental and involuntary benefactors.
#42Verb Forms in the Blank
#43Verb Forms in the Blank
- Set · 7 questionsDirections: select the word group that fits each blank Passage The difficult thing about ___(91)___ the science of habits is that most people, when they hear about this field of research, ___(92)___ to know the secret formula for quickly changing any habit. If scientists have discovered how ___(93)___ patterns work, then it stands to reason that they ___(94)___ have also found a recipe for rapid change, right ? If only it ___(95)___ that easy. It’s not ___(96)___ formulas don’t exist. The problem is that there isn’t one formula for ___(97)___ habits. There are thousands. Individuals and habits are ___(98)___ different, and so the specifics of diagnosing and changing the patterns in our lives differ from person to ___(99)___ and behaviour to behaviour. Giving up cigarettes is different ___(100)___ curbing overeating, which is different from changing how you communicate with your spouse, ___(101)___ is different from how you prioritize tasks at work. What’s more, each person’s habits are ___(102)___ by different cravings. As a result, this book does not ___(103)___ one prescription. Rather, I hoped to deliver something else : a framework for understanding ___(104)___ habits work and a guide to experimenting with how they ___(105)___ change. Some habits yield easily to analysis and influence. Others are ___(106)___ complex and obstinate, and require prolonged study. And for others, change is a ___(107)___ that never fully concludes. But that does not ___(108)___ it can’t occur. Each chapter in this book explains a different aspect of why habits exist and how they function. The framework ___(109)___ in this section is an attempt to distil, in a ___(110)___ very basic way, the tactics that researchers have found for diagnosing and shaping habits within our own lives.
#44Verb Forms in the Blank
#45Verb Forms in the Blank
#46Verb Forms in the Blank
#47Verb Forms in the Blank
#48Verb Forms in the Blank
#49Verb Forms in the Blank
#50Verb Forms in the Blank
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