THE CLOZE READING PASSAGE… TAKE THE GUESS WORK OUT OF GUESSING.

Learn what to look for in the cloze reading passage and how to supply it. Once you learn what to look for, right answers will often just pop into your head.

Before we get to the “popping” of answers, though, we need to take a closer look at something.

What’s that, exactly?

We need to take a closer look at the cloze section of the Michigan Proficiency Exam itself. In other words, we need to know what’s being tested in this section.

The Michigan Proficiency cloze, like all cloze passages, examines a variety of items including; grammar, vocabulary, verb structures, various tenses and connectors.

These items are tested in essentially two different ways.

The first type is tested at the sentence level. The sentence (also known as phrase) level is exactly what you think it is.

The blank in the sentence needs to be filled with a word or phrase that

1. is part of a collocation (a word combination)
2. is part of a phrasal verb ( I know, I know, help is on the way!)
3. is part of a verb form (continuous, perfect, future etc.)

OR 

The second type is testing a word at the discourse level.

This type of problem tests your overall understanding of the text. The answer to the question is not immediately before or after the blank. You find the answer to these types of problems in other parts of the text.

In the discourse level the answer has already been mentioned in the text or will be mentioned in the text. All you have to do is find them!

Don’t worry; I know a few tricks that will help you do just that. The types of words that answer discourse level questions are…

1. vocabulary items (think synonyms)
2. pronouns or time referents (before, while, after, when etc.)
3. connectors or discourse markers (in addition, on the otherhand)


By recognizing what types of words are being tested and knowing how they are being tested, your chances for success in the cloze reading passage are increasing greatly!

On the next page, we’ll get into the “how to” of the cloze section of the test.

By clicking on the following link, you’ll learn even more about the cloze reading passage.