Text completion problems are usually straightforward. You’re given a sentence with one or more blanks, and you choose the word(s) that best complete the meaning.
A useful approach is to avoid starting by testing every answer choice in the blank. Instead:
Most answer choices are written to tempt you into a mistake, so it helps to form your own idea first.
Let’s try an example. What word would you naturally put in the blank?
The governor was ________ that she won the election.
The key clue is that she won the election. Winning an election is typically a positive outcome, so the missing word should probably describe a positive emotion.
If you thought of a word like happy, joyful, or glad, you’re aiming in the right direction.
Now compare your filler word to the answer choices. Which one best matches: angry, disappointed, confused, joyful, or irritated?
The best match is joyful.
You might wonder about confused. The sentence doesn’t explicitly say she wasn’t confused, but text completion questions reward the choice that is best supported by the evidence in the sentence. Here, the evidence points strongly toward a positive reaction. There’s no clue suggesting confusion, so confused is possible in real life, but it isn’t the best-supported answer.
If you miss a question because you don’t know a word’s meaning, focus on what you can control: practice generating a clear filler word from the context, then choose the option closest in meaning to that filler word.