What the task looks like
You see a short paragraph in which some words are printed only in part: the beginning is there and the rest is missing. Your job is to complete each word so that the paragraph reads correctly; usually only one completion fits both the printed letters and the sentence.
In the practice examples here, each underscore stands for one letter, so the gap also shows how long the ending is. Three worked examples from a paragraph about volunteers repairing old chairs:
- “Volunteers work care_____.” → carefully: the five letters “fully” make an adverb, because the sentence says how they work.
- “The chairs are dam____.” → damaged: the four letters “aged” describe the chairs’ condition.
- “The card gives an instruc____.” → instruction: the four letters “tion” complete the noun after “an”.
Checks for every gap
The topic gets you close, but the sentence decides the form. Read the whole paragraph once for meaning, then check each gap:
- Keep the printed letters: your answer adds to them and never replaces them.
- Name the job of the word: a noun after “a”, “the” or an adjective; a base verb after “can”, “should” or “to”; an adjective before a noun or after “is”; an adverb when the word says how something happens.
- Count the gaps: a word with the right meaning but the wrong length is the wrong word.
- Read the finished sentence: if it sounds wrong, check the ending again.
Try one: which ending completes “work___”?
Listen to the short question and answer, then use the check it names on another sentence from the same paragraph. Three endings are possible, but only one fits:
- “Several work___ prepare chairs for painting.”
Question How do you choose the right form of a word?
Answer Look at the job the word does in its sentence: noun, verb, adjective or adverb.
Word endings worth knowing
Many gaps hide an ending that changes the word class. Learn each ending with a sentence, not as a single word:
- -ly turns an adjective into an adverb: careful → carefully, safe → safely.
- -tion and -ment make nouns: instruct → instruction, replace → replacement.
- -ed often describes a condition: damage → damaged.
- -able makes an adjective: reuse → reusable (“Reusable materials can be used again.”).
- -er names a person: work → worker; after “several”, workers.
- Plural and verb -s: “each worker” but “several workers”; “a helper checks” but “helpers check”.
How to practise
One paragraph a day builds the habit. This routine takes about 15 minutes:
- Read: go through the whole paragraph once without writing.
- Complete: write only the missing letters; skip a hard gap and come back to it.
- Check: reread every completed sentence before you look at the answers.
- Explain: for two answers, write the clue that decided them: a letter pattern, a grammar rule or the meaning.
- Collect: add every ending you missed to a word family list, such as care, careful, carefully, careless.
Typical mistakes
Many lost answers come from form, not from unknown words. If your first language has no plural ending after numbers or no articles, check every noun after “several”, “two” or “a”.
- Writing the whole word, or changing the printed letters.
- Choosing a word that fits the topic but not the grammar: “careful” where the sentence needs “carefully”.
- Forgetting the plural after “several”, “many” or “two”.
- Ignoring the number of gaps.
- Misspelling the ending: “carefuly”, “instrucsion”.
Next step
When you can complete a practice paragraph and explain two of your answers, move on to reading notices, messages and longer passages, where you combine details. Building sentences in the writing section uses the same word-class checks.