Lesson 4 of 46 · Text Completion
Text Completion: two and three blanks
Start with the blank that has the strongest clue, let each answer inform the next, and test the whole passage before you commit.
About 22 minutes
In this lesson
- Choose which blank to solve first in a multi-blank item.
- Use a solved blank as a clue for the others.
- Check a full set of answers against the whole passage, knowing there is no partial credit.
The idea
How multi-blank items are built
When a Text Completion has two or three blanks, each blank has its own column of three choices, and you pick one from each column. Credit comes only when every blank is right; there is no partial credit. Passages run up to five sentences, so a three-blank item can be a short paragraph with an argument of its own.
That design has two consequences. The good one: with three choices per blank, each column is quicker to sort than a five-choice list. The hard one: the blanks depend on each other, and a column often contains a word that fits its own clause perfectly but breaks the passage as a whole.
You do not have to start with blank (i)
Blanks are numbered in reading order, but the first blank often has the weakest clue. Before choosing, read the whole passage and ask, for each blank, how much the surrounding text tells you about it. Start with the blank whose clue is clearest. Typical strong clues are a colon followed by examples, a word like "laughed" or "strikes" that describes an outcome directly, or a contrast word next to a plain description.
Let each answer become a clue
Once one blank is filled, read the passage again with it in place. The filled word is now part of the text, and it often settles the other blanks. In "The speech was (i) ______ in tone but (ii) ______ in substance", knowing that the tone was mild tells you, through "but", that the substance was not.
This is also why a mistake in one blank tends to spread. If your first answer is wrong, the clue it gives for the next blank is wrong too. Fill the blank you are surest of first.
Map the logic of a longer passage
For two- and three-sentence passages, sketch the argument in a few words before you look at any column:
- What was believed or done first?
- What changed, and why?
- What is the result?
A typical shape is "people used to think X; a new study says X was a mistake, because Y; as a result, Z". Each blank sits at one of those points. When you know which point a blank sits at, you know whether it should agree with the old view, reject it or describe its consequence.
Three choices per column: sort them
In a three-choice column you can usually sort the words quickly: one points in the direction you predicted, one points the other way, and one is off topic. If two seem to point your way, the passage is asking for a more precise word; go back to the clue. If none does, recheck the signal words.
Test the whole passage
Before you move on, read the passage once more with all the blanks filled. Ask: does it make one coherent point? A passage that says "the letters were marginal; this neglect was justified; the letters influenced policy" contradicts itself, however well each word fits its own clause. Because there is no partial credit, this final read is worth more on a multi-blank item than anywhere else.
When the columns seem to disagree
Sometimes you fill two blanks confidently and find nothing in the third column that fits. Do not force a word in. A dead end in one column almost always means an earlier choice was wrong: the column you filled first gave you a false clue. Go back to the blank you were least sure of, try its next-best choice, and see whether the stuck column now has an obvious answer. The passage was written to have exactly one consistent set; if your set is not consistent, one of its parts is wrong.
Time
Multi-blank items take longer than one-blank items, and that is fine. A three-blank paragraph can deserve two to three minutes if it is solvable; quick one-blank items will pay that time back. If you are stuck, enter your best set of answers, mark the question and return to it.
Worked examples
Example 1: Two blanks joined by "but"
The senator's speech was (i) ______ in tone but (ii) ______ in substance: she spoke softly and courteously, yet proposed cutting the agency's budget by half.
Blank (i): mild, combative, evasive. Blank (ii): drastic, modest, vague.
Find the strongest clue for each blank. After the colon, "spoke softly and courteously" describes the tone, and "cutting the budget by half" describes the substance.
Blank (i): soft and courteous is mild. Combative is the reverse; evasive is about avoiding questions, which nothing mentions.
Blank (ii): halving a budget is a large change, so drastic. Modest is the reverse; vague is wrong because the proposal is specific.
Check the whole: "mild in tone but drastic in substance" uses "but" correctly, and the colon's two halves match the two blanks in order.
Answer
Mild and drastic. Choosing modest for blank (ii) because it "goes with" a mild tone ignores both "but" and the halved budget.
Example 2: Starting with the second blank
Critics who expected the director's first comedy to be (i) ______ were surprised; the film is so (ii) ______ that audiences at the premiere laughed through most of its scenes.
Blank (i): hilarious, leaden, lucrative. Blank (ii): uproarious, sombre, tedious.
Blank (i) has a weak clue on its own: "critics who expected it to be ..." could go anywhere. Blank (ii) has a direct clue: audiences laughed through most scenes.
Solve (ii) first: a film that keeps an audience laughing is uproarious. Sombre and tedious point the other way.
Now "were surprised" links the critics' expectation to that result: they expected the opposite of very funny. Blank (i) is leaden (heavy, dull). Hilarious would remove the surprise; lucrative (profitable) is about money, not humour.
Read the whole: critics expected a leaden comedy and were surprised by an uproarious one. It is coherent.
Answer
Leaden and uproarious. Starting with blank (i), many readers pick hilarious simply because the film is a comedy, and then cannot make "were surprised" work.
Example 3: Three blanks in a short argument
For decades, historians treated the merchant's letters as (i) ______ sources, useful only for prices and shipping dates. A new study argues that this neglect was (ii) ______: read closely, the letters reveal a network of informants whose reports quietly (iii) ______ trade policy in three ports.
Blank (i): indispensable, marginal, fraudulent. Blank (ii): justified, deliberate, misguided. Blank (iii): influenced, mirrored, ignored.
Map the argument: historians undervalued the letters; a new study says that was a mistake; the letters show informants who mattered.
Blank (i): "useful only for prices and shipping dates" and "this neglect" both say the letters were treated as minor: marginal. Indispensable is the reverse; fraudulent would make the letters useless even for prices.
Blank (iii): the colon gives the evidence that the letters matter, so the informants' reports must have had an effect on policy: influenced. Mirrored (merely reflected) and ignored would not show that the letters matter.
Blank (ii): with the evidence in place, the study's verdict on the neglect is that it was a mistake: misguided. Justified contradicts the evidence; deliberate is about intent, which nothing addresses.
Read the whole passage with marginal, misguided and influenced: it makes one consistent point.
Answer
Marginal, misguided, influenced. The tempting error is justified for blank (ii): it agrees with the historians' view in the first sentence, but the colon's evidence shows the study rejects that view.
Common traps
Always starting with blank (i)
The order of the blanks is the order of reading, not of difficulty. If blank (i) has a weak clue, a guess there will mislead you on the others. Rank the blanks by the strength of their clues and start with the strongest.
Words that fit their own clause only
Each column is likely to hold a word that reads naturally in its own clause but contradicts another part of the passage. Only the full read-through catches it.
Treating a blank as half-marks
There is no partial credit, so a set with one wrong blank is worth the same as a set with all blanks wrong. Spend the extra seconds to check the whole passage before moving on.
Letting an early error spread
A wrong first answer becomes a false clue for the next blank. If the remaining columns seem to have no good choice, the problem is probably the blank you filled first; go back to it.
Check yourself
Answer each question before you open its answer.
Question 1: The founders' accounts
Text Completion
Though the startup's founders described their accounting as merely (i) ______, the auditors found it (ii) ______: entire quarters of expenses had simply been left off the books.
On the test each blank has its own column of three (blank (i): informal, rigorous, audited; blank (ii): incomplete, meticulous, transparent). Here the possible combinations are listed.
- A.rigorous ... incomplete
- B.informal ... meticulous
- C.informal ... incomplete
- D.audited ... transparent
- E.rigorous ... meticulous
Show the answer
Answer: C. informal ... incomplete
Working
Start with blank (ii), which has the clearest clue: the colon says whole quarters of expenses were missing, so the auditors found the accounts incomplete. "Though" then sets the founders' description against that finding, and "merely" marks it as a minimising description: informal.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. "Merely" with "though" calls for a word that plays the problem down; "rigorous" is praise, not a modest description.
- B. Blank (i) is right, but "meticulous" contradicts quarters of expenses left off the books.
- D. "Transparent" contradicts the missing expenses, and "merely audited" is not a way of downplaying a problem.
- E. Both words praise the accounts, so "though" has nothing to contrast and the missing expenses are left unexplained.
What carries over
Solve the blank with the clearest clue first, then let the signal words connect it to the others.
Question 2: Early and late essays
Text Completion
The essayist's later work is far more (i) ______ than her early pieces, which were notorious for (ii) ______: a single paragraph might wander through four unrelated anecdotes before reaching its point.
Blank (i): focused, rambling, playful. Blank (ii): digression, brevity, repetition. The possible combinations are listed.
- A.rambling ... digression
- B.focused ... digression
- C.focused ... brevity
- D.rambling ... brevity
- E.playful ... repetition
Show the answer
Answer: B. focused ... digression
Working
Blank (ii) has the direct clue: paragraphs that wander through unrelated anecdotes show digression. "Far more ... than" contrasts the later work with that habit, so it is focused.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Blank (ii) is right, but "far more ... than" sets the later work against the early pieces; "rambling" makes them alike.
- C. Wandering through four anecdotes before the point is the opposite of brevity.
- D. Both blanks are reversed: the early pieces wander, and the later work is contrasted with them.
- E. Four unrelated anecdotes are not the same thing repeated, and "playful" does not oppose wandering.
What carries over
A comparison such as "far more ... than" is a contrast signal between the two things compared.
Question 3: The museum's storage
Text Completion
The museum's new director inherited a collection that had been (i) ______ for years: dozens of works sat uncatalogued in basement storage. Rather than (ii) ______ the problem, she made it public, inviting volunteers to help photograph and record every piece. The result was a catalogue far more (iii) ______ than any the museum had produced before.
Blank (i): neglected, exhibited, insured. Blank (ii): concealing, addressing, exaggerating. Blank (iii): comprehensive, selective, costly. The possible combinations are listed.
- A.neglected ... exaggerating ... comprehensive
- B.exhibited ... concealing ... comprehensive
- C.neglected ... concealing ... selective
- D.insured ... addressing ... costly
- E.neglected ... concealing ... comprehensive
Show the answer
Answer: E. neglected ... concealing ... comprehensive
Working
Blank (i): the colon's evidence (uncatalogued works in storage) restates neglected. Blank (ii): "rather than" contrasts with "made it public", so concealing. Blank (iii): volunteers recorded every piece, so the catalogue was more comprehensive. Read together, the passage tells one story: neglect, openness instead of hiding, a complete record.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Making a problem public is not the opposite of exaggerating it, so "rather than" has nothing to contrast.
- B. Works sitting uncatalogued in a basement were not being exhibited; the colon contradicts blank (i).
- C. A catalogue built by recording every piece is the opposite of selective.
- D. Making the problem public with volunteers is a way of addressing it, so "rather than addressing" contradicts itself; nothing supports "insured" or "costly".
What carries over
In a three-blank passage, give each blank its own clue, then check that the three answers tell one consistent story.
Key points
Start with the blank whose clue is clearest, wherever it sits.
Each filled blank becomes a clue for the others.
Map a longer passage as belief, change, result before reading the columns.
No partial credit: read the whole passage with every blank filled before moving on.
All questions here are original and written for UniExamer; none comes from the test maker.
Written by the UniExamer team with AI assistance. Every worked example and check question was re-solved by an independent checker before publication. No subject expert has reviewed this lesson yet. If you find a mistake, write to support@uniexamer.com.