B1 Preliminary Reading Part 4: gapped text practice

• Whether you can follow how a text holds together across sentence boundaries.
• Recognition of reference words: it, they, this, that one, the other, such.
• Control of linkers: however, for example, as a result, at the same time, even so.
• Understanding of time sequence — whether an event comes before or after the gap.
• The ability to reject an option that fits the topic but breaks the grammar of the gap.
• Number agreement: whether the missing sentence has to introduce one thing or several.
• Whether you can hold the shape of a whole text in mind while working on one gap.
• Recognition of repeated and substituted nouns: ‘the machine’ answering ‘a coffee maker’.
• The discipline to eliminate rather than to choose, when three options mention the same topic.
• Checking work: whether a completed text reads continuously when you go back over it.

1. Step 1: 1

   Read the whole text with the gaps in it

   Do one pass without touching the options, so you know the story or the argument. A text you have not understood cannot be reassembled by matching words.

2. Step 2: 2

   Read after the gap, not just before

   The sentence following the gap often contains the pronoun or linker that identifies the missing sentence. ‘They were all broken’ tells you the missing sentence introduced a plural noun.

3. Step 3: 3

   Hunt for the links, not the topic

   Mark every pronoun, ‘this/that’, ‘the other’, ‘also’ and time phrase in the options. Each is a hook that must attach to something on one side of a gap.

4. Step 4: 4

   Check singular against plural and tense against tense

   If the sentence after the gap says ‘she agreed’, the missing sentence must contain a woman and a suggestion. This kind of mechanical check settles most items.

5. Step 5: 5

   Do the certain ones first and eliminate

   Fill the gaps you are sure of, cross those options off, and the remaining choices shrink. Never work strictly top to bottom.

6. Step 6: 6

   Reread the finished text

   Spend the last minute reading the whole text with your answers in place. A wrong fit almost always sounds wrong when read continuously.

7. Step 7: 7

   Watch for repeated nouns

   If the text after a gap says ‘the machine’, something in the missing sentence has to be a machine. Nouns with ‘the’ point backwards as reliably as pronouns do.

8. Step 8: 8

   Use time phrases as anchors

   ‘The next morning’, ‘by then’, ‘two years later’ fix a sentence in the sequence. Put those options in order along the text before you worry about the rest.

9. Step 9: 9

   Look at what the option cannot follow

   A sentence beginning ‘She agreed’ cannot follow a sentence with no suggestion in it. Ruling out on the left is as powerful as matching on the right.

10. Step 10: 10

    Count your options against your gaps

    There are more options than gaps. When you have two gaps and three options left, compare those three directly rather than going back to the whole list.

11. Step 11: 11

    Change an answer only with a reason

    If you want to swap two answers at the end, you should be able to name the pronoun or linker that makes the swap work. A vague feeling is not a reason.

• Not thisI chose this sentence because it also talks about the weather.

  ThisI chose the sentence whose pronoun matches the noun after the gap.

  Topic overlap is designed into every wrong option. Cohesion, not topic, decides the answer.

• Not thisThe missing sentence is about ‘the two boys’, and the next sentence says ‘he’.

  ThisThe missing sentence must introduce one boy if the next sentence says ‘he’.

  Number agreement across the gap is the fastest way to eliminate options and candidates skip it.

• Not thisIt doesn’t matter if I don’t read the last paragraph.

  ThisThe last gap is usually solved by the final sentence of the text.

  Candidates run out of time and guess the end, but the closing sentence often names exactly what the missing one introduced.

• Not thisHowever, I enjoyed it and however it was expensive.

  ThisHowever, it was expensive. I enjoyed it even so.

  Linkers are not interchangeable and cannot be repeated freely; each has its own position and meaning.

• Not thisThe missing sentence uses the present simple, and the text is a story in the past — that’s fine.

  ThisA past narrative needs a past sentence, so a present-tense option is almost always wrong.

  Tense consistency eliminates options in one glance and candidates rarely check it.

• Not thisI filled the gaps in order and had two left that didn’t fit.

  ThisI filled the gaps I was sure of first, then compared the remaining options directly.

  Working top to bottom forces a guess on gap one that ruins gaps two and three.

• Not thisBecause of I was late, I missed the start.

  ThisBecause I was late, I missed the start.

  ‘Because’ is followed by a clause and ‘because of’ by a noun. Cause linkers appear in the options and the wrong form is easy to overlook.

• Not thisBoth sentences mention a dog, so either could go in the gap.

  ThisOnly one of them introduces the dog for the first time, and the text after the gap says ‘the dog’.

  ‘A dog’ introduces; ‘the dog’ refers back. Articles decide which sentence comes first.

however

Introduces a contrast with what came before.

as a result

Introduces a consequence of the previous sentence.

for example

Introduces an illustration of a general statement just made.

even so

Despite what has just been said.

at the same time

While that was happening; also, on the other hand.

instead

In place of the thing just mentioned.

in fact

Introduces a correction or a stronger, truer version.

the other one

Refers back to the second of two things already mentioned.

such a thing

Refers back to a kind of thing already described.

afterwards

After the event just described.

by then

Before or at that point in the past already mentioned.

meanwhile

While that was happening, somewhere else.

on top of that

In addition to the problem just described.

that is why

Introduces a result of everything said before.

since then

From that moment until now.

in other words

Introduces a simpler restatement of what was just said.

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