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PSLE English Vocabulary Cloze: Do's & Don'ts
12 Jul 2025·5 min read·The Tutor's Table
The vocabulary / cloze passage punishes skim-readers and rewards close readers. The answer is almost always already sitting in the sentence before or after the blank — students just don't look.
Do's
- DO read the ENTIRE passage through once before filling anything in. The passage is one story, not 15 separate sentences.
- DO use context clues: synonyms, contrast words ('but', 'however'), cause-effect ('because', 'so'), and examples.
- DO match the part of speech — noun, verb, adjective, adverb — before choosing a word.
- DO re-read the sentence with your answer plugged in. It should sound natural and complete.
- DO watch for collocations ('heavy rain', 'strong wind', 'take a decision' vs 'make a decision').
- DO come back to any skipped blanks after finishing the passage — later sentences often reveal the earlier answer.
Don'ts
- DON'T write the first word that comes to mind. Confirm it fits grammatically AND in meaning.
- DON'T mix tenses from the rest of the passage.
- DON'T leave a blank — even a reasonable guess has a chance of picking up the mark.
- DON'T repeat the same exact word in the blank that's already in the sentence unless it clearly fits.
- DON'T overlook small grammar words (articles, prepositions) — they're often the blank.
- DON'T panic at an unfamiliar topic. The clues are always in the passage, not in your prior knowledge.
Read the whole story first. Answer from context, not from vocabulary guesswork.
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