The year of 2018 saw a drastic change in the pattern of Cloze Test. It came as a shock as well as a surprise to the candidates appearing for the exam. The literal meaning of Cloze Test is that it’s a procedure in which a student is asked to supply words that have been removed from a passage as a test of their ability to comprehend text. But the IBPS board has set new standards recently, which appears to be challenging and difficult, but in reality, isn’t so. New patterns are introduced by the board to test your agility and unprejudiced thinking towards new things. Yes, the time constraint only adds to the pressure, but it can be overcome with practice. This is where the practice sessions of Oliveboard comes in.
In the old pattern of Cloze Test, we saw the new option of ‘no replacement required’ or ‘no changes required’, with a word in bold instead of the blank and 4 unique options, of which we had to choose the one which fits both grammatically and contextually in the said sentence. You can say that it was a combination of Reading comprehension and Fill in the Blanks. Most of the questions could be solved on the basis of tone of the passage and on context basis. But the new pattern is nothing short of it. It requires you to have knowledge of grammar as well as vocabulary. Let us have a look at the new pattern and how you can ensure maximum marks from this topic.
Take free Oliveboard IBPS Clerk Mains Mock Test
The question primarily consists of 10 questions with a blend of three blank word replacement, sentence replacement, error spotting, words re-arrangement, one blank fill ups, same meaning sentence, phrase replacement and sentence joining (connectors). While some are straight forward questions, others have more than one option to choose from. The passages in the past revolved around the theme of economy and current happenings of the World.
- Read the whole passage
Read the given passage carefully and try to understand the gist of it. After the first reading you should be able to conclude which part of the passage has a negative and/ or positive connotation, if any. By doing this, much time is saved while cruising through the questions and their options. Identifying the tone of the passage only makes it easier for us.
- Go for the easier, one blank fill ups first
By doing this, more sentences would make sense and give us an idea of the blanks surrounding them. This might require you to have some basic knowledge like, structure of the sentence, adjectives, nouns and verbs, forms of words, gerunds etc. For more on concepts of grammar, click here.
Take free Oliveboard IBPS Clerk Mains Mock Test
- Elimination of options
This trick works with every topic. The options ‘ All of the above’ and ‘none of the above’ or ‘no error’ are rarely the answers to the questions. But this probability gives an opportunity to the exam setter to deliberately set some questions with such answers. You must either be absolutely sure what goes in the blank or you can try substituting one option at a time and then decide whether it ‘all of the above’ or ‘none of above’/ ‘no error’. You can straight away negate the obvious wrong options.
- Practice
You can also practice the individual topics separately and then attempt Oliveboard time-based tests on each of these topics. This will help you get a hang of the new pattern cloze test. Try practicing each topic everyday and mix- match them one day in a cloze test for further practice. Attempt quiz on this to check your level of preparation here.
Take free Oliveboard IBPS Clerk Mains Mock Test
Hope this will help you in the upcoming exams. Feel free to comment and discuss below. Happy Learning!
Also Read
Time Management and Competitive Exams
Author: Shweta Dayal
Oliveboard is a learning & practice platform for premier entrance exams. We have helped over 1 crore users since 2012 with their Bank, SSC, Railways, Insurance, Teaching and other competitive Exams preparation.
Oliveboard Live Courses & Mock Test Series
