English Questions: Fill in the Blanks 106

Direction (1-10): In each question below a sentence is given with two blanks in each. Each question is followed by four options with two words in each. You have to select that option as your answer which can fill both the blanks of the sentence.

1. Keeping that freeze year after year – as the Conservatives have done – compounds these savings, meaning the measure has now probably reduced government spending by about £8bn a year. Given the Conservatives’ relentless ______________ about the need to improve Britain’s balance sheet, some might conclude that this was a ______________ but necessary step.
   elocution, fragile
   rhetoric, tough
   bombast, royal
   verbosity, vulnerable
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

2. The brightest light shone by the dissident journalist through his murder is, of course, on the morally repugnant nature of the regime that rules the nation he fled. The nauseating details of his killing, according to Turkish leaks – the bone saw; the instruction from the lead limb-chopper, a doctor, to his colleagues to put on headphones and listen to music to distract themselves from the gruesomeness of their task; the ______________ repaint of the walls of the Istanbul consulate – confirm what we already knew. The House of Saud is itself ______________ in blood.
   rash, baked
   precipitate, drenched
   hasty, soaked
   hurried, sere
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

3. The shouting was ______________ from the end of the corridor, but it was only when I got close that it was clear what was actually happening. A well-known broadcaster, who shall not be named despite richly deserving it, was ______________ at an obviously frightened junior researcher for something that seemingly wasn’t her fault. Walking into the whole thing as a studio guest was as oddly embarrassing as stumbling into a marital row by accident, but asking around later I learned that it apparently happened all the time.
   perceptible, bellowing
   discernible, shouting
   distinct, howling
   audible, bawling
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

4. The GRA changes will have a negligible effect on British society, because most gender-______________ spaces already rely on self-identification. That’s why no one has ever demanded to verify your gender – whatever that might ______________ – before you use a public toilet. Trans people have been using toilets, accessing domestic violence facilities, playing sports, using changing rooms, and generally trying to get on with their lives for as long as they have existed.
   chauvinistic, depict
   nationalistic, debar
   isolated, convey
   segregated, entail
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

5. Isn’t that a little premature?” a relative of mine asked when I told him I was writing the story of my life so far in eight essays. For some, my life has been too short to be ______________. I’ve not reached 30 yet, that age milestone that proves beyond doubt you are now irrevocably an adult. For others, my life has been too uneventful. I’ve watched news of wars, earthquakes and famine ______________ past on my TV, safe in my living room.
   chronicled, ticker
   accounted, outskirts
   registered, outside
   logged, fear
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

6. To know what a thing is you have to know where it begins and ends, and where its edges are. And the awkward fact is that the United Kingdom begins and ends in the blurry, ______________, impossibly ambiguous border that ______________ its weary way around the six north-eastern counties of Ireland. This is a fact, not just of Irish history, but of British history.
   twisting, pitchers
   meandering, snakes
   circuitous, smut
   turning, crock
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

7. Next week it will be my first day in a new job, after almost 20 years in public life in Europe and Britain. It could not be more of a contrast. Instead of the gothic _____________ of Westminster, I will be surrounded by the gleaming glass and steel of Silicon Valley. Instead of the ______________ of the state in Whitehall, I will now experience the dynamism of the private sector in Palo Alto. Instead of the impact of Brexit, I will now be focused on the impact of tech.
   pomp, frailty
   magnificence, impotency
   grandeur, imbecility
   splendour, clout
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

8. In a world that believes in freedom of speech, Khashoggi’s ethos is that of a respectable journalist. Yet, as far as Saudi Arabia’s rulers are concerned, being fair and balanced is an act of ______________ deserving of death. In such a country, you should be full of praise for every action undertaken, or speech uttered, by the ruler so as to be spared his ______________. This is a regime similar to ones in European medieval times: it claims to have a “divine mandate”.
   fealty, outrage
   permanence, exasperation
   treason, wrath
   allegiance, fury
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

9. At the Brussels summit, everyone on the EU’s side was briefing a similar shtick: the ball is now in May’s ______________ . Keeping to the European position almost word for word, Macron was more well-behaved than fellow leaders, such as Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė, who did not ______________ her words when she declared that the UK “does not know what it wants”. The EU’s collective frustration is clear – it isn’t just Macron’s.
   court, conceal
   court, mince
   court, reveal
   court, divulge
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

10. I’m attending the march to help reverse this damaging ______________ . It has become very clear that when the Brexit referendum was called, no one, including the government or pro-Brexit campaigners, had prepared for a leave result. There is still no ______________ plan in place, and the minority government cannot deliver its own underdeveloped vision for Brexit.
    conviction, garbled
    resolve, isolated
    decision, cohesive
    conclusion, fragmented
    All are Correct
    Option C