Cloze Reading

• Read the whole text without trying to fill in the blanks the first time through.

This will help you get a feel for the text. Pay attention to referent words like after, then, while, before, etc.

• Look at a few verbs before you read the text again and try to fill in the blanks of the cloze reading.

This will help you make right choices regarding verb collocations. There will be verb collocations and grammar
based questions in general so it's a good idea to know what you'll be looking for. Try to see the big picture
because so often in this section of the test students focus on the blanks and miss these types of questions.

• Look at the paragraphs and their relationship to each other. Is it the introduction? Conclusion? Is the
paragraph describing an event or process?

Again, this will help you see the big picture and identify discourse level questions much easier. Connectors
and discourse markers like; that is to say, in other words, in contrast, etc. should be recognized here.
Remember, such questions are almost always found in the exam!

• Read the text to the full stop or period!

Don't stop at the blank and try to fill it in. This is where answer "popping" occurs.

I tell my students to read the sentence and when they come to the blank in the sentence to actually say the
word "blank" in their head. As you do this, many times the right answer choice pops into your head. This
happens because you have read English structures and collocations many, many times. When you say the
word "blank" your mind often supplies the right word automatically. (In other words ... "pop")

Does this work at every blank?

No, no technique does. But it does work often enough for me to highly recommend you try this method!

• Work through the text blank by blank. Decide what the blank is asking for. Is it a grammar item or
verb collocation? Is it a vocabulary item at the sentence level? Is it a discourse marker or referent at
the discourse level?

Is it a subject pronoun or possessive pronoun?

Finally, re-read the text with the answer choices you've selected in the blanks.

By doing so - you may catch a wrong answer even though it seemed right at the time you selected it. Yes,
this takes time and that's the one thing you don't have enough of, right?

Wrong!
At most, the re-read should take a minute. That's a minute well spent if you catch and correct a foolish
mistake in the cloze reading. One minute could literally mean the difference between pass, or fail.
In class example:

Humans are commonly believed to be __ 1 __ animals that can consume both

plant and animal products. Evidence suggests that early Homo Sapiens
employed Hunter-gatherer as their primary means of __ 2 __ collection. This
involves combining stationary plant and fungal food sources (such as fruits,
grains, roots, and mushrooms) with mobile animals, which must be __ 3 __
and killed in order to be consumed.

At least ten thousand years __ 4 __, humans developed agriculture, which has
altered the kind of food people eat. This has led to a variety of important
historical consequences, such as increased population, the development of
cities, and the wider spread of infectious diseases.

A portion of food or the act of eating a portion of food is considered a meal.

Often named and patterned, meals play a role in an important social occasion,
such as the celebration of many key cultural and religious festivals. A __ 5 __
can be used as means for feeding a single individual or shared and eaten
simultaneously by two or more people.
The number of meals consumed by __ 6 __ in a day, their size, composition,
when and how they are prepared and eaten varies __ 7 __ around the world.
This __ 8 __ can be attributed to a number of local factors, including climate,
ecology, economy, cultural traditions and industrialisation.

In societies where the availability of food has __ 9 __ above subsistence levels

and beyond staple foods, meals are also sold pre-prepared for __ 10 __
consumption in restaurants and other similar retail premises.

1. carnivorous omnivorous herbivorous social

2. nutrient vitamin food meat

3. hunted captured captivated tracked

4. ago later after before

5. food vitamins meat meal

6. humans individuals persons people

7. all over huge greatly almost

8. diversity bewilderment variety kind

9. arose aroused risen raised

10. quick immediate synchronous fast

Name:________________________

Dr. Seuss Cloze Reading Excercise

Word Bank:
Army born different
married Ham magazine
died publishers zookeeper
Cat boring College
books Massachusetts words

Dr. Seuss is the pen name of Theodore Seuss Geisel. He was __________________ on March 2, 1904, in
Springfield, ________________________, USA. His father was a ____________________________.

Geisel went to Dartmouth __________________ in New Hampshire. After graduating in 1925, he went to Oxford
University, in England, where he met his wife, Helen Palmer (they were __________________ in 1927).

Back in the USA, Geisel published cartoons for a humor magazine and got a job creating ads for an insecticide
company. His ads for a product called "Flit" soon became famous. In 1936, he wrote his first book, "To Think That
I Saw It on Mulberry Street." It was rejected by dozens of __________________, but was finally published in 1937.

During World War 2, Geisel wrote documentaries for the __________________. In 1951, after the war, his writing
for the short cartoon movie, "Gerald McBoing-Boing," won an Oscar.

In 1955, Seuss wrote "The __________________ in the Hat," using only 220 different words. He wrote the book
after reading a ______________________ article that stated that children's books were __________________. His
book was a tremendous success.

In 1960, a friend of Dr. Seuss' bet him that he couldn't write a book using only 50 ______________________
words. He did, writing "Green Eggs and __________________." It was his most popular book.

Dr. Seuss wrote about 50 children's __________________. His last one, published in 1990, was "Oh, the Places
You'll Go!" He __________________ on September 24, 1991.