Gap-fill: how to write one

The same task goes by several names: fill in the blanks, fill in the gaps, cloze sentence, gap filling. They all describe the exercise below, and this page uses gap-fill throughout.

The lead-in

The words before the gap. They have to make the grammar of the answer inevitable — a subject, a time phrase, an auxiliary.

The gap

One word, or one short phrase. Two gaps in one sentence turn an accuracy check into a puzzle.

The tail

The words after the gap. This is where you rule out the second possible answer.

The key

The answer, plus every spelling and contraction you will accept. Students type on phones: does not and doesn’t are the same answer.

Works well at A1–B2. Reach for it when:

• You want to check one form is automatic before moving to freer practice.
• The class has just met a rule and needs volume, not variety.
• You want something students can self-check at home with no marking.

Choose something else when:

• You are testing meaning rather than form — multiple choice shows you what they thought the sentence meant.
• The answer could reasonably be three different words. That is a vocabulary discussion, not a gap-fill.
• Students cannot yet produce the form at all. Teach it, then drill it.

1. Step 1: 1

   Write the sentence first, complete

   Write a natural sentence you would say to the class. Only then decide which word to remove. Sentences written around a gap sound like sentences written around a gap.

2. Step 2: 2

   Remove the target word, not a near neighbour

   If you are teaching the third-person -s, the gap goes on the verb. Gapping the subject or the object tests something else and tells you nothing.

3. Step 3: 3

   Close the escape routes

   Read the sentence with the gap and list every word that fits. If there is more than one, add a time phrase, a name or a tail that rules the others out.

4. Step 4: 4

   List the answers you will accept

   Contractions, both spellings of a word, a curly and a straight apostrophe. Anything a student can reasonably type and be right.

5. Step 5: 5

   Order them easy to hard

   Start with an item the whole class will get. A first wrong answer stops more students than a hard sixth one.

• Not thisShe ____ to school every day.

  BetterShe ____ to school every day. (go)

  Without the prompt, goes, walks, drives and cycles are all correct. Give the infinitive or a picture.

• Not this____ ____ a bank near here?

  Better____ there a bank near here?

  Two gaps in a short sentence test memory of the whole phrase, not the structure you taught.

• Not thisThe man who lives next door ____ a nurse.

  BetterThe woman who lives next door ____ a nurse.

  If the sentence carries a second difficulty, the item stops measuring the one you chose.

Real items, not screenshots. Answers are checked in your browser and never sent to us, so you can share this page with a class exactly as it is.

Prompt in brackets

Give the infinitive after the sentence: (go), (not like). Standard in coursebooks, and it turns an open gap into a form check.

First letter given

Write g____ instead of an empty gap. Useful at A1, where an open gap is often too big a step.

Banked gap-fill

Give a word list for the whole set. Easier, and it lets you recycle vocabulary at the same time — the gapped-text block does this across a whole paragraph.

• Present simpleA1 · explanation and exercises
• Past simpleA2 · explanation and exercises
• Present perfectB1 · explanation and exercises
• There is / there areA1 · explanation and exercises

Pick Two Activity is independent and not affiliated with Cambridge University Press & Assessment. These pages describe the level you are teaching towards; always check the official site for the current format.

• A2 KeyA2 · practice ideas
• B1 PreliminaryB1 · practice ideas

• Open clozegapped text
• Multiple choiceMCQ
• Word formationword building
• Teaching A1A1 (beginner)
• Teaching A2A2 (elementary)
• All exercise types12 tasks, and when to use each