A missing-sentences task removes whole sentences from a text and asks students to put them back, with one or two extra sentences that belong nowhere. It is the only task here that tests cohesion — the pronouns, linkers and time references that hold a paragraph together — and it is Reading Part 6 at B2 First.
Also called
The same task goes by several names: gapped text, insert the sentence, reading part 6, sentence insertion. They all describe the exercise below, and this page uses missing sentences throughout.
What one item is made of
The text
A coherent paragraph or short article. It must still read as one piece with the sentences removed.
The removed sentences
Each carries a clue to its place: a pronoun with no antecedent elsewhere, a linker, a time reference.
The distractors
One or two sentences that fit the topic and the style but not any gap. Without these the last answer is free.
The clues
What actually decides each answer. If a sentence could go in two gaps, the text has no clue for it.
When to use it
Works well at B1–C1. Reach for it when:
You are teaching cohesion: reference words, linkers, the shape of a paragraph.
Students understand every sentence but cannot follow a whole text.
Your class is preparing for B2 First or C1 Advanced reading.
Choose something else when:
The text is a list. Instructions and recipes have no cohesion to test, so any order works.
The class is below B1, where the reading load alone is the obstacle.
How to write a missing sentences exercise
Step 1: 1
Write or choose a properly cohesive text
Narratives and arguments work. A text whose sentences could be shuffled without harm has nothing to test.
Step 2: 2
Remove sentences that carry a clue
Look for pronouns, this, however, the next morning. A removed sentence with no reference to anything is unplaceable.
Step 3: 3
Never remove two in a row
Adjacent gaps take away the context each one needs, and students end up guessing both.
Step 4: 4
Write distractors that almost work
Same topic, same register, plausible at a glance, but contradicting a detail or referring to something that does not exist.
Step 5: 5
Solve it yourself from the clues alone
For each gap, name the word that proves the answer. If you cannot, the item is not fair.
Mistakes teachers make
Not thisRemoving sentences from a recipe
BetterRemoving sentences from a story or an argument
Procedural texts have order but no cohesion clues, so several answers are defensible.
Not thisFive sentences removed, five options
BetterFive sentences removed, six options
Equal numbers hand students the last answer for free.
Not thisDistractor: The Moon is made of cheese.
BetterDistractor: She had visited the town once before, many years earlier.
An obviously wrong option is never chosen and so tests nothing. The distractor should be tempting.
Try it: missing sentences examples
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.
Four sentences have been removed from this text. There is one extra sentence you do not need.
1Choose the sentence that fits each gap.
AThat might have been the end of it.
BHer solution was to walk to the bakery every morning and talk to whoever was in the queue.
CThe bakery had been in the same family for three generations.
DShe still insists that she never agreed to anything.
EBy the spring, somebody had suggested she join the village committee.
When my grandmother moved to the village, she knew nobody at all.
Within a month she had met half the street that way, and the other half had heard about her.
She refused, of course, and said she was far too busy growing tomatoes.
These days the committee meets in her kitchen anyway, which she says is not at all the same thing.
Nobody has the heart to point out the difference.
4 to go
Variations worth knowing
Paragraph ordering
Give the whole text cut into paragraphs and ask for the order. Easier to write and it teaches the same thing.
One gap, whole class
Project a single gap and four options and argue it out. Ten minutes on one item teaches the strategy better than a full task.
Underline the clue
Students mark the word that proves each answer. Converts a guessing task into a teaching one.
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.
Four to six from a text of 300 to 500 words, never two in a row. Cambridge B2 First Part 6 removes six, which is the top of the useful range for class practice.
Why include an extra sentence?
Because without one the final gap is answered by elimination. A good distractor matches the topic and the register but contradicts a detail or refers to something that is not in the text.
What kind of text works best?
A story or an argument, where sentences depend on each other through pronouns, linkers and time references. Recipes and instructions have order but no cohesion, so several answers end up defensible.