Two Options That Both Sound Right in the Cloze
Rustam is 7 minutes into a 25-item multiple-choice cloze and has 15 minutes in total. The text opens:
"When the firm announced that staff would return to the office three days a week, few expected the building to be refurbished. The site (1) ___ a warehouse before 2019, and the conversion had been done cheaply. (2) ___ the expense, management went ahead with a full refit last spring; the company (3) ___ more on the building since 2021 than on any other project. Neither the managers nor the landlord (4) ___ willing to postpone the work. A staff survey found that 92% wanted to keep the hybrid arrangement, so (5) ___ of the employees would choose to return to five days on site."
Options: (1) used to be / would be / was used to being / had been used to be; (2) Despite / Although / However / Even though; (3) has spent / spent / has been spent / is spending; (4) was / were / have been / are; (5) Few / A few / Little / Much.
Rustam has spent 90 seconds on item 3, re-reading the sentence to decide whether "since 2021" "sounds better" with spent or has spent.
1. Explain items 1 and 2, including why each distractor is wrong.
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Item 1: used to be.
- used to + infinitive expresses a past state that no longer holds - the site was a warehouse before 2019 and is not now. This is the only option that carries that meaning cleanly.
- would be is wrong because would for past habit works with dynamic verbs (would visit, would commute) but not with stative be. "The site would be a warehouse" reads as a conditional.
- was used to being means "was accustomed to being" - a different structure (be used to + -ing) that changes the meaning entirely, and collides with "before 2019".
- had been used to be is not a well-formed English string; it stacks two structures that do not combine.
Item 2: Despite.
- The gap is followed by a noun phrase, "the expense". Despite and because of take noun phrases; although and even though require a finite clause (although the refit was expensive).
- However is an adverb and would need a following comma plus a clause, and it cannot precede a noun phrase here.
- Between the two noun-phrase options the logic decides it: spending money despite the expense means proceeding anyway, which matches "went ahead". Because of would reverse the logic.
2. Explain items 4 and 5, and say what kind of reasoning each one actually tests.
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Item 4: was.
- The subject is "Neither the managers nor the landlord" - a correlative construction. Standard agreement follows the nearest noun, and "the landlord" is singular, so the verb is singular: was.
- were is the trap for candidates who see "managers" first and apply plural agreement. have been and are fail on both agreement and tense: the surrounding narrative is past simple.
- This item tests grammatical agreement with a proximity rule, not meaning. No amount of re-reading for sense will resolve it; the rule will.
Item 5: Few.
- Few = almost none, and it carries negative orientation, which matches the evidence just given (92% wanted to keep the hybrid arrangement). A few = some, which would contradict the survey figure.
- Little and much are for uncountable nouns; "employees" is countable and plural.
- This item tests quantifier choice driven by the logic of the preceding clause, which is why Rustam should read backwards from the gap, not forwards.
3. Rustam has now lost 90 seconds on item 3 and 8 minutes remain for 18 items. What should he do, and what reasoning error is he making?
Read the worked answer
On item 3 the answer is has spent: present perfect with since 2021, and active because the company is the subject spending money. has been spent would require the money as subject; spent breaks the since + present-perfect pattern; is spending loses the link to a period beginning in 2021.
The error he is making is the "sound test": rereading the same sentence to see which option sounds more natural. Sound is a legitimate final filter for collocation, but it cannot decide tense-aspect, agreement or complementation, because the wrong forms here are all common English words that occur elsewhere. The right procedure for any grammar gap is: identify the trigger in the surrounding text (here, since 2021), name the rule it activates, then check the options against the rule.
Triage: with 8 minutes for 18 items he has about 25 seconds each. He should mark item 3 with his best guess now, never leave a blank, and spend any remaining time on the items that turn on a single word he can locate. Two items answered by rule beat ten reread for feel.