Why Sourcing for Clues in Comprehension Cloze Will Help You Secure Your AL1

Grade

Cloze Passage is one of the most baffling components of the Primary School English
Paper 2 and we all wish we could do better in it. One important thing that you should
know about comprehension cloze passages is that they are not meant to be an
exercise where you guess the words and hope you are right!

This makes us wonder, how do teachers decide which word should be a blank?

Let’s begin by looking at the sentence below.

His expression turned as white as a sheet when he saw the scary dog.

When your teacher sets the blank, she has to make sure that the number of possible
answers is limited.

To illustrate, let’s imagine that a blank was set as follows:

His expression turned as white as a sheet when he saw the ______________ dog.

If you hadn’t seen the original sentence, what would you put as the answer? Some
people might say scary or frightening, but who’s to say that the answer couldn’t be
massive/huge/intimidating/growling/menacing/barking, or a whole host of other
adjectives?

Thus, more sensibly, your teacher would make a blank like this:
His expression turned as _____________ as a sheet when he saw the scary dog.

Here, we have an example of a fixed expression. This means that the answer in this
case can only be white/pale. This is why we highlight for clues – teachers are not
setting their blanks for cloze passages blindly, so you should not be grasping at straws
and putting in random answers, either!
How many of you have had that experience where your eyes just skim the page and
suddenly, you realise you didn’t absorb any information because your mind was
distracted by something else? We know we have! So there’s another reason we
highlight for clues – making sure that we read carefully.

In cloze passages, there are times when you know the answer, but ultimately get it
wrong because you use the wrong tense or the wrong form of the word. Hence, you
should always look out for grammatical ideas in the sentence too – did the verb you
choose agree with the subject, for example? Let’s take a look at a sample to see what
we mean.

Excerpt of student’s work:

The pieces of equipment 1) moves_ when the switch is turned on. However, on that
night, the guard who was on duty claimed to have heard some noise, and proceeded
to investigate the source of the disturbance. He saw some shadows 2) darted_ along
the corridor at great speed, and hollered for the figures to stop, but they continued
moving.

Can you see the mistakes above? The word “equipment” is uncountable and would
ordinarily be singular. However, the context of the sentence mentioned “the pieces
of”, so what should be the answer here?

1. _________

For the second blank, although the passage talks about an incident which has already
occurred, the sentence structure above is a little special. Our students recognise the
rule to apply here; do you know what the answer should be? Give it a try!

2. _________

Answers:
 1. move
2. dart / darting

Has this article helped you to understand how to approach the comprehension cloze
component better? If so, you might be keen to find out more about our regular
writing/English classes! Our structured classes give students the tools they need to ace the
all-important examinations, empowering them to learn these techniques and more. At the
same time, they gain exposure to a variety of comprehension cloze passages and acquire a
wider repertoire of vocabulary.

Alvin Low
With close to a decade of teaching experience, Alvin has found teaching English a particularly
fulfilling profession. He has a fervent passion for language and humanities, giving up a career
in research to focus on language teaching. Alvin’s background in corporate training has given
him an edge in curriculum development and planning. Hence, it is no surprise that the
students he has taught over the years from Lower Primary to Upper Secondary have
benefitted from him greatly. Alvin finds the greatest joy in helping struggling students see
potential in themselves and stellar students scale to the pinnacle of their achievements.
The Right Word is an English Specialist centre that has coached more than a thousand
students since 2013. With our proprietary Sail to Success techniques and TRW ethos, students
have chosen to go on their language acquisition journey with us through primary school to
JC.

The SAIL Approach: 
An Enriching Journey Towards Academic Success

The SAIL Approach is conceived through research workshops and research projects by the
team of teachers at TRW. Through the journey of our Masters education, journalism/writing
expertise and the many years of experience we have collected teaching students, we have
put together an approach proven to inculcate inquisitive, motivated students who have a zest
for success in academic endeavours and in life. The dynamic SAIL approach constantly
innovates and adapts to the seas of change that students are subjected to in this highly-
globalised and competitive society.
If you’ve enjoyed this resource, you might be glad to know this is only one small part out of
the many strategies we use to tackle EVERY section of the English paper.
Why Students and Parents Love TRW

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I could not pass English at first because I made a lot of spelling and grammar errors. I also
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Elizabeth Tang (Marymount Convent School)

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