Click to enlargeCloze Passages
Whole passages with gaps: the cloze format most grammar schools now use.
- 20 tests in the book
- Graded from accessible to exam standard
- Full answer key, independently re-checked question by question
Want the whole series? The full English series is £497, under £19 a book.
How this book is used in our course
English books are worked in short daily sessions rather than one long sitting. For vocabulary, the child covers the meaning, says it aloud, then checks; words that are missed go on a card for the week. For comprehension and cloze, the child attempts the passage under a loose time, then marks against the key and rewrites any answer that lost marks.
Where it sits in the series
- Previous book in the series: Book 11, English Rules 2 Testbook
- Next book in the series: Book 13, Shuffled Sentences 2
What's inside English Mastery 12
Four real pages from the book, so you can see exactly what your child will work from. All 8 sample pages are in the viewer.
Twenty tests in ten levels of the cloze format most grammar schools now use: whole passages, a ten-word box, four distractors.
Cloze Sentences gave a child one gap and six words. Cloze Passages gives them a story with six gaps, a box of ten words, and four words that are there to trick them. Three passages per test, eighteen gaps, and the vocabulary climbs from Level 1 to Level 10. This is the exact format of the GL English paper, and the one most children have practised least.
Six steps, a worked fox, and the warning about the four words that are there to trick you.
Read the whole passage first. Work out the word class each gap needs. Look for meaning clues before and after the gap, and treat but, while and on the other hand as a warning that the answer is the opposite of something nearby. Use each word once. Cross off each word as you use it, because the distractors are often the right word class and the wrong meaning. Re-read the finished passage. The worked example walks a hungry fox through all six gaps, and explains why devour is tempting and wrong.
Three passages, three boxes of ten, eighteen gaps: felicitations, incessant, benevolent, gullible, ovation.
"For years, the people of Ashby had told tales of fierce beasts in Hollow Wood, and of [1] ones that guided lost travellers safely home. John was not [2] enough to believe every story he heard, but the [3] hooting that had kept him awake night after night made him curious." Benevolent, gullible, incessant: each gap has one right word and nine wrong ones, four of which were never meant for any gap. Level 1 is already the exam’s level of vocabulary; the levels above it add subtlety.
Every gap, letter and word, for all twenty tests.
Marked in a minute, scored on the chart, and the wrong words traced back to Vocabulary 1 or 2. A child who re-reads the completed passage with the answers in sees how the words they missed shaped the meaning, which is the skill the exam is testing.
All 20 tests in the book follow the pattern shown here.
Other Year 4 & 5 books in English Mastery
English Rules 1 Testbook
Quizzes, tests and scorecards for every rule in English Rules 1.
Cloze Sentences 1
Fill-the-gap sentences that teach a child to read for sense, not just for words.
Shuffled Sentences 1
Rebuild scrambled sentences and spot the word that does not belong.
Comprehension 1
Retrieval and basic skills on fiction, poetry and non-fiction passages.