PSLE English: 3 Tools To Help You Solve The Compre Cloze

What’s one PSLE English section that you find difficult? If you say the comprehension cloze passage, you are not alone!

Many primary school students find this section of the PSLE English paper quite tricky, because they require a strong understanding of word meanings and how words are used in context. Often, it is not enough to know a lot of words – but students also need to know how to use these words appropriately and use clues to choose the most suitable word.

To a student who doesn’t understand how to tackle cloze passages well, getting the right answer feels like a game of chance. So, let’s break down what comprehension cloze is all about and we will share 3 clues to look out for when solving a cloze passage!

What is the comprehension cloze?

The comprehension cloze tests primary school students’ on their knowledge of how to use words in the correct context. Given a short passage with blanks, students need to fill in each blank with a suitable word. The section is worth 15 marks, with 1 mark for each answer. The challenging part is that there is no helping words for this cloze passage. Students need to use the surrounding text to determine the best meaning that will fit the blank, and choose the most suitable word from their own vocabulary.

How to improve in comprehension cloze

A big part of doing the comprehension cloze is looking out for clues. The clues in the passage will help you narrow down your options of which word to use. These clues can vary from grammatical to the contextual meaning. Below, we introduce 3 of these handy tools that we teach our PSLE English students to look out for in the cloze passage!

Parts of speech

Although this is not the grammar cloze passage, you can’t ignore grammar while doing the comprehension cloze. Even after you think you found a perfect word with the right meaning, look again at the words surrounding the blank. Does your word fit grammatically?

For verbs: Is it in the correct tense and in agreement with the subject?

For adverbs: Adverbs usually come after a verb and describes the way that the action is being performed. Is your word in adverb form (usually with the suffix ‘-ly’)?

For nouns: Is the singular or plural more appropriate there? Does the verb form give you any clues?

Words that go together

Some words are commonly used in a phrase. These could be phrasal verbs, idioms, or collocations. This means that when you are learning new vocabulary or revising your vocabulary list, it helps to learn them in phrases or with example sentences so that you know which word they commonly go with. While doing the cloze passage, look out for these clues or half-phrases that you can complete by filling in the blank!

Contextual clues

Just by looking at the passage grammatically, you may find that there are many possible answers for each blank. So, you also need to look at contextual clues to figure out the best possible meaning that the word should express. Sometimes, you need to go beyond the sentence that the blank is located in. Look through the entire paragraph and consider what the main point the writer is trying to express.

In the 2023 PSLE English comprehension cloze example, we may be stumped at first by what to write in (58):

“…these travellers often get a much ___ idea of the views…”

Are the sighted travellers doing a good job or poor job of describing the views? Should the answer be something like ‘hazier’ or ‘clearer’? (And note how the construction of the sentence means the word in the blank should be something that ends in the -er form, like ‘better’, ‘poorer’.)

If we look further down in the passage, we get a big clue! The travellers are said to be ‘describing the picturesque views as vividly as they can‘. From here, we can gather that the sighted travellers are doing a good job with the descriptions, and so the sight-impaired travellers should have a clearer idea of the views.

Conclusion

Mastering the comprehension cloze section of the PSLE English paper takes more than just memorising word lists. It’s about understanding how words function in different contexts, how they fit grammatically, and how they’re used in common phrases or expressions. Reading a wide array of texts – including fiction and nonfiction genres – also helps build up a natural sense of what ‘sounds right’ in the English language.

But if you are running short of time and want a systematic way to grasp techniques for tackling the PSLE English papers, our PSLE English tutors in Singapore can help! Using systematic tools and strategies, our tutors are able to demystify the PSLE English paper, turning it from game of luck to a checklist of skills that students can practice and improve upon – transforming their performance from average to excellent!

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