Vocabulary and Grammar in Context: Fill-in-the-Blank, Function Words, Tense, and Form
What grammar blanks test
Fill-in-the-blank items check whether you can choose the form that fits the whole sentence: tense, subject-verb agreement, passive voice, conditionals, infinitives/gerunds, comparatives, relative pronouns, conjunctions, and function words. The correct answer must be grammatical and meaningful.
Core rules
- Find the main subject and verb first; cross out prepositional phrases that distract agreement.
- Use time markers to fix tense: 'yesterday' → past; 'since 2020' → present perfect; 'by next month' → future perfect or future.
- Decide voice by meaning: does the subject do the action or receive it?
- Learn sentence patterns: 'It is ... for A to do'; 'A is used to doing'; 'the book I bought'; 'one of the most ... cities.'
- Check the word class needed: noun, adjective, adverb, or conjunction.
Worked example
'If it ( ) tomorrow, we will cancel the picnic.' Options: rains / rained / will rain / raining. Reason: The main clause uses 'will cancel,' so this is a first conditional: If + present simple, will + base verb. 'If it rains' is correct. 'Rained' would need 'would cancel'; 'will rain' cannot follow 'if' in this pattern.
Traps
- Agreement across 'one of the + plural noun': 'One of the students is...'
- Passive vs active: 'The window was broken by Tom' vs 'Tom broke the window.'
- 'Used to' + base verb (past habit) vs 'be used to' + -ing (accustomed).
- Missing auxiliary in questions and negatives.
- Choosing by sound rather than by sentence position.