Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
Integrated grammar: filling gaps in a passage
Work out what kind of word a gap needs from the words around it, and fill it in the right form.
An integrated grammar question does not tell you which rule it is testing. A single passage can hide an article, a preposition, a tense and a joining word in four consecutive gaps, and you have to work out which is which before you can fill anything. The good news is that the passage always contains the clue.
Step one — what kind of word?
Before choosing a word, name its job. A gap after a noun and before a verb wants a helping verb. A gap before a noun wants an article, an adjective or a determiner. A gap between two complete halves wants a joining word.
Step two — find the clue
The clue is rarely inside the gap. Last Tuesday forces a simple past; since 2015 forces a present perfect; a vowel sound after the gap forces an, not a; two halves that disagree with each other force a contrast word.
Read the whole thing first
Gaps in a passage lean on each other — the sentence around one gap often decides another. A gap near the beginning is often only decidable from a sentence three lines later, so read to the end before you write anything down.
Then read it back
Put your word in and read the sentence aloud in your head, from the capital letter to the full stop. Half of all gap-fill errors are heard immediately and never spotted by staring at the gap alone.
Worked example
Fill the gap: "The shop ____ closed since the owner fell ill last month."
Name the job. The gap sits between a noun and closed, so it needs a helping verb.
That rules out an article, a preposition and a joining word before you have thought about tense at all.
Try it together
Three gaps in one short passage.
The passage is: "Last Friday we ___(a)___ to the harbour. It ___(b)___ raining when we arrived, ___(c)___ we walked on anyway." Write one word at each step.
1.Gap (a). The clue is "last Friday", so the tense is simple past. Use the verb "go".
Have a go
Fill the gap: "By the time we reached the hall, the play ____ begun."
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.