English Questions: Fill in the Blanks 108

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. Whatever the topic, the goal is always the same: using online means to _________ real-world beliefs and actions. What makes the problem harder to deal with is that it is no longer just Russian actors that we have to keep our eye on. Examples now range from Iranian online influence operations to mercenaries willing to work for multimillionaires on single-issue campaigns. Indeed, it appears that the Brazilian election is being shaped by many of the same toxic _________ amid what has been called a “fake news tsunami”.
   modify, fluke
   alter, tactics
   convert, conformity
   mutate, fortuity
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

2. Last Saturday’s march for a People’s Vote, on the other hand, stretched no farther than the mile and a half between Hyde Park Corner and Parliament Square that has become the standard route for the big London street demonstration, and it walked at a pace no _________ than a _________ or a saunter. It was amiable, good-hearted and often humorous, as a large part of it needed to be, having been stood at a standstill in Park Lane long after the published starting time.
   slacker, stoop
   duller, slump
   brisker, slouch
   slower, droop
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

3. Though Peter Hain used parliamentary privilege to name the Arcadia retail tycoon in the House of Lords, it must be _________ that the original _________ against the Telegraph still holds, and these are merely allegations. As for allegations of what, over to the eye-catching release put out by Green himself on Thursday evening.
   accented, allowance
   distressed, permission
   punctuated, bewilderment
   stressed, injunction
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

4. The law is a fine moral _________. At its best it cuts as close to true as any one hand can. But the hand that wields it is only human. And it presses with the weight of value judgments that are neither objective nor universal. These failings, in a case involving moral judgments, are serious and _________.
   scalpel, inevitable
   lancet, fortuitous
   hatchet, avertible
   cleaver, equivocal
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

5. “Despite this epidemic of needless, preventable deaths and disability, a _________ of complacency _________ the planet,” Tedros said, in an article for the Guardian. “This is a defining moment and we must scale up action to urgently respond to this challenge.”
   miasma, inundates
   gauze, drenches
   smog, pervades
   fume, douses
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

6. All my _________ are with the anti-normalisers. Indeed, when it comes to Trump, I got there early, writing in this _________ even before he’d sworn the oath of office: “Don’t treat Donald Trump as if he’s a normal president. He’s not.” I’d happily extend that rule to the likes of Steve Bannon, briefly Trump’s chief strategist, now keen to pose as an impresario of the populist international, lending his semi-celebrity to far rightists from Italy’s Matteo Salvini to Britain’s own Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who styles himself “Tommy Robinson”.
   debilities, slit
   disablements, groove
   impotencies, niche
   instincts, slot
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

7. The Turkish president is better known for a relentless political oppression that has left dozens of journalists in jail or cast out of their jobs, than for championing the cause of a free media. Lately, however, he has _________ as the most vocal critic of the shocking murder of Saudi _________ journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
   emerged, dissident
   developed, pedant
   sprouted, conformist
   loomed, classicist
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

8. Charity is a cold, grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a _________ .” It is a phrase commonly _________ to Clement Attlee – the credit actually belongs to his biographer, Francis Beckett – but it elegantly sums up the case for progressive taxation.
   pattern, relieved
   whim, ascribed
   intention, confidential
   scheduled, illegal
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

9. Any such policy must meet the test of delivering our safe exit from the EU, thereby honouring the _________ result, and do so in a way that does not harm British industry. It should have, as its longer-term aim, the agreement of a free trade deal with the EU that delivers _________ and sets us free to make our own laws, implement a balanced immigration policy, and reach our own trade deals around the world.
   suffrage, adversity
   franchise, distress
   referendum, prosperity
   proxy, blight
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

10. Britain’s one-hour time difference with most of the EU, two hours with Greece and Finland, is a real – if little mentioned – barrier to frictionless _________. Phone calls go unanswered, deadlines get missed. It may be only 4pm in London, but in Athens it’s 6pm – so there’s no point trying to trace that missing _________ delivery.
    ample, feta
    affable, feta
    contract, feta
    trade, feta
    All are Correct
    Option D