Double blank text completion | Text completion and sentence equivalence | Verbal reasoning

Double blank text completion problems are just like single blank questions, except now you have… two blanks. These are slightly more complicated, but the overall strategy remains the same: read the text, imagine your own filler words, and then find similar words in the choices.

It is important to read the full text first, and then imagine your filler words. These passages often have important context in the second half that influences the meaning of the first half. Here’s a simple example to illustrate the point!

The marathon runner ran __(1)__ miles per day because of his __(2)__ injury.

(1): many, very few, endless
(2): lovely, recent, strange

Without reading the whole text, we might assume that a marathon runner would run many miles per day, but after reading the second half, we can see that the runner was injured. An injury sure isn’t lovely, and having a strange injury doesn’t really make here, leaving us with recent as the correct choice. Coming back to the first blank with this additional context, it’s clear that very few is the only option that fits.

Harder example

Give this harder double-blank text completion question a try:

There are those who believe that success is the result of hard work and calculated efforts, while others believe it to be a more __(1)__ occurrence. Many who believe they have control over their success and failures mistakenly attribute too much of their success to their own doing, while others misattribute too much of their woes to __(2)__. The true nature of the world lies somewhere between the two schools of thought.

(1): elusive, serendipitous, effortless
(2): laziness, happenstance, neglect

Take a moment to try answering this question on your own, and then continue to read our explanation.

Ready for the explanation?

At first glance, it seems all choices could make sense for the first blank. However, the second sentence adds information that helps us choose both blanks and have them make sense in context with each other.

The first sentence begins by describing the type of person that believes they have full control over their success and failures, and then, it describes an opposite mindset. Both sentences split the two ways of thinking with the words “while others”. From the first two sentences, we know that the first mindset believes “success is the result of hard work and calculated efforts”, and that they mistakenly attribute too much of their successes and failures “to their own doing”. Naturally, the opposite mindset would believe that their success and failures have little to do with their own doing: in other words, “happenstance” fits perfectly for the second blank. It would actually be the first school of thought that would believe that laziness and neglect result in woes. After choosing happenstance for the second blank, we have good reason to believe that the first blank is “serendipitous” (lucky) instead of effortless or elusive.