Fill In The Blanks — The Complete Guide for SSC and Bank PO Exams
How to solve, tips and tricks, examples, step-by-step solutions, previous year questions — Everything
Fill in the blanks are one of the most important topics for any SSC exam.
In SSC CGL, about 2–3 questions of fill in the blanks are asked in the pre-exam and about 10–15 questions in the mains exam. Thus you can expect about 15–17 marks from this subset of questions.
Fill-in-the-blanks questions are one of those rare types of questions that test a students’ actual exposure to the English language. To solve these questions, you must be the jack of all trades — English grammar, vocabulary, idioms and phrases, knowledge of prepositions, collocations, sentence structure, articles, compound tenses, and everything else under the sun.
How to solve fill in the blanks
There are several so-called methods or strategies to solve these questions but all of them essentially boil down to Elimination.
Elimination
The crux of this technique is that you should read the sentence again and again and try to identify the clues. These clues can be any of the several types we stated above — phrases, idioms, vocabulary, grammar, preposition, or plain old common sense.
Below, I have presented several questions based on different clues. While I have segregated them based on my understanding of the clues, you need not do that in the exam.
You should simply read and reread the question until some clues pop out before you.
Fill in the blanks based on phrases
Take a look at this question which is based on phrases-
- In this disastrous economy, there’s a _________ chance I’ll get a raise.
A. not
B. high
C. fat
D. thin
🌳 Solution
Considering the context of the question, it is apparent that in such a poor economy; the speaker is unlikely to get a raise (or promotion). The key-word here is unlikely.
Now we have to find a word or phrase which is synonymous with unlikely.
Taking a quick look at the options, we can rule out option B — ’high chance’, because it is the exact opposite of unlikely.
Now we are left with three options which will look like this if we put them in the blank space—
A. a not chance
C. a fat chance
D. a thin chance
Now the solution to this question depends solely on your exposure to the English language. If you have read enough English newspapers and /or books that you have come across this phrase, you can answer this question. Otherwise, there’s a fat chance of you solving this question.
If you have gotten the hint, cheers 🍺🍺!
The answer to this question is option C — fat chance ✅. While options A and D also appear plausible, they are not a better fit than option ‘C’ simply because fat chance is widely used in the English language as a phrase synonymous with unlikely.
Here’s the dictionary entry for the phrase fat chance.
Option A would also have been correct if it were written as not a chance.
It appears that option D is also correct. Note that the phrase ‘a thin chance’, although used informally in verbal communication, is not a standard phrase in the English language. There’s no dictionary entry for that. The equivalent phrase used in the written formal English is a slim chance.
Fill in the blanks based on Idioms
Take a look at this question which is based on a very famous idiom-
2. I finally let the cat out of the _______ and told him that I am getting married next month.
A. cart
B. bag
C. house
D. well
🌳 Solution
There’s no mathematical logic that you can apply. You can solve this question only if you have prepared idioms beforehand or if you have included enough reading in your preparation.
By the way, the answer to this question is B — bag.
If you are weak in idioms or want to brush them up, here’s my free mini-course on idioms on Udemy. You can enroll in it and watch it for free.
Fill in the blanks based on grammar
Take a look at the question below which involves the subject-verb agreement rule of English grammar-
3. He could not get through the examination, because none of his answers _________ pertinent to the questions asked.
A. was
B. were
C. had been
D. None of these
🌳 Solution —
As state above, this question is based on the subject-verb agreement rule of English grammar. In simple words, this rule states that-
A singular subject will take a singular verb, and a plural subject will take a plural verb.
The challenge, however, in these questions is to identify the subject with which we have to align the verb.
In this question, the blank space is for the helping verb. The part of the sentence immediately before it is the subject phrase—none of his answers.
Here, none refers to ‘answers’ which is plural therefore the subject none will take a plural helping verb. Thus answer is ‘B- were’ ✅.
Fill in the blanks based on vocabulary
4. I was worn with pain and weak from the __________ hardships which I had undergone.
A. protracted
B. lengthened
C. stretched
D. prolonged
E. elongated
🌳 Solution —
This question invites you to tap into your vocab bank and differentiate between similar-looking options. These options are near-synonyms of each other.
All 5 options have a connotation of something ‘lasting longer than usual’ or ‘or bigger than normal’, yet we can reject options B, C, and E outright. All these options—lengthened, stretched & elongated- involve an external agency, as if something or someone made hardships longer deliberately.
The question is straightforward until this point. Anyone with decent exposure to English can eliminate these 3 options.
Now we are left with the remaining two - A) protracted and D) prolonged. It is this point that differentiates between the better and the best student.
The truth is both of these options are synonyms with each other. I have combed through the Internet to find any possible difference which would provide us a clue in this question but no luck.
Our only recourse is to rely on our previous encounter with the word hardship. If we have, in our day-to-day reading, ran into the word hardship preceded by prolonged, we can figure out its answer, otherwise no, we can’t.
There is nothing you can do in these types of questions unless you have a very good vocabulary and a decent exposure to the English language.
You can check out my vocabulary course to improve your vocab for exams like SSC, Bank PO, CAT, MAT, and others. Here’s the link —
Fill in the blanks based on phrasal verbs
5. Renu is not _________ for this kind of job.
A. cut out
B. cut through
C. cut up
D. cut in
E. cut
🌳 Solution
The difficulty level of this question depends solely on your knowledge of phrasal verbs. If you have learned enough phrasal verbs, this is a piece of cake.
Phrasal verbs often have over one meaning. Their most widely used meanings are listed below-
A. cut out for: to have all qualities for a job or skill. (e.g. He’s not cut out to be a teacher.)
B. cut through: to get through or past something (e.g. It took some time to cut through the lies and get to the truth.)
C. cut up: to cut (something) into parts or pieces (e.g. He cut up the candy into little pieces and gave it to the child.)
D. cut in: to interrupt (e.g. We were trying to have a conversation, but she kept cutting in.)
In this question, there’s a clue in the form of for after the blank space. While solving such questions, always consider the word at the end of the blank space. Often, it provides a clue that can help eliminate 2 or 3 options.
Fill in the blanks based on common sense
6. After a recent mild paralytic attack, his movements are _________ restricted; otherwise he is still very active.
A. not
B. entirely
C. slightly
D. nowhere
E. frequently
🌳 Solution —
We can solve this question by apply common sense. We can eliminate option D as ‘nowhere restricted’ makes little sense.
In the second part of the sentence, it is said that ‘he is still very active’. Also, the attack was a ‘mild’ one thus we can eliminate options B and E. If he is still very active, his movements cannot be ‘entirely restricted’ or ‘frequently restricted’.
Now we are left with options A and C. Now, we can simply try to put options in the blank space and read the sentence aloud. The sentence which sounds natural to the ears will be the correct one. (In the exam hall, you can pronounce sentences aloud in your mind.)
With option A —
- After a recent mild paralytic attack, his movements are not restricted; otherwise, he is still very active.
With option B —
2. After a recent mild paralytic attack, his movements are slightly restricted; otherwise he is still very active.
I hope you agree that the second sentence sounds natural whereas the first sentence sounds clumsy and jagged. Hence our answer is B — slightly ✅.
If this sound-natural-to-the-ears method doesn’t work with you, you can still look for clues in the sentence.
For the option A (not) to be correct in this sentence, it should have been written as —
Even after a recent mild paralytic attack, his movements are not restricted; he is still very active.
We have added even before the sentence and removed otherwise from the second part of the sentence. The word otherwise should be removed because it is used to show a contrast with the previous part of the sentence.
You will agree that this sentence is as natural as it sounds.
The ability to distinguish a right sentence from the wrong one comes from daily reading habits. There’s no escaping the fact that you need to read an English newspaper every day for at least 2 hours if you want to score well in English.
Fill in the blanks based on parts of speech
7. Although their law firm had settled many disputes, the past experiences ________ them to be optimistic, expecting that the talks would be a success.
A. Rash
B. Ambivalent
C. Scornful
D. Restrained
🌳 Solution —
A quick glance at the second part of the sentence ‘the past experiences ___________ them to be optimistic’ tells us that there should be a verb in the blank space.
In the given options — A, B, and C are adjectives; only option D is a verb. Hence this is our answer ✅.
This question was simple as it got solved from a single clue. This may not be the case every time. We have one more very important clue here which would have helped us if the other options had verbs.
This second clue is that the verb must be in the 2nd form i.e. past form. As the first part of the sentence — their law firm had settled many disputes — is in past perfect, it is clear from the context that the second part, the past experiences ________ them to be optimistic, must be in past indefinite. Therefore, we should choose D — restrained as the answer.
I hope by now you have gotten an idea of how to solve the Fill in the blanks questions. To recap —
- Read the sentence again and again to find any clues regarding the grammatical identity of the missing word. These clues can tell you a lot about the missing word — it's part of speech, its form (present, past, or past participle) if it's a verb, its place in vocabulary (if it's part of a phrase, phrasal verb, idiom or an independent verb), etc.
- Try to eliminate the options as fast as possible. You might need to read the sentence again and again after every such elimination.
- We also used the same method while solving questions based on cloze tests which occupy 10 marks so pay special attention to this strategy.
- Practice a lot — I know it's a cliché, but it became a cliché because it's true. While I was preparing myself, I got confident in fill in the blanks only after I had practiced about 400 such questions.
I practiced from an excellent book — English is easy by Chetanand Singh which contains 500 such questions with detailed explanations to each of them. The author has also explained why other options are wrong and should be eliminated.
Buy the book on amazon. (Affiliate link)
Be sure to check out other articles also.
