IBPS RRB English Cloze Test Questions: Quick Answer
This set has 20 original cloze test questions with full step-by-step explanations, written for the IBPS RRB PO and Clerk Mains English section. The twenty blanks sit in four passages of about 130 words each, and the passages are about the world the RRB paper itself lives in: Jan Dhan accounts and financial inclusion, self-help groups in villages, UPI and digital payments, and the repo rate. Each blank has five options, and only one of them fits — the others are wrong on grammar, on meaning, or on the idiom the sentence needs. Every explanation tells you why the right word fits and why each of the four wrong words does not, so a question you miss still teaches you the rule or the collocation.
The cloze test is the part of the English section where reading skill and grammar meet. The English section in both the RRB PO Mains and the RRB Clerk Mains is 40 questions for 40 marks in 30 minutes, with a negative marking of 0.25 marks for every wrong answer, and you attempt the section in English or in Hindi — one language for the whole section. A cloze passage is usually five blanks, and the paper typically carries one or two passages, so five to ten of your forty marks depend on this skill. The good news is that cloze is the most learnable block in the section: the blanks test a small set of things — verb forms, prepositions, connectors, collocations and idioms — and the passage gives you the context that a single sentence never can. Read the whole passage first, then fill the blanks, and the answers start to choose themselves.
Key takeaway: Never fill a cloze blank from the sentence alone. Read the whole passage first, in full, without looking at the options. The passage tells you its tense, its tone and its argument, and half the blanks are decided by that context before you even reach them. A blank that looks like a choice between five similar words is usually decided by the sentence two lines earlier.
What This Set Covers
| Block | Questions | Passage theme | Skills tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passage 1 | 1–5 | Jan Dhan accounts and financial inclusion | Collocations, adverbs, idioms, connectors |
| Passage 2 | 6–10 | Self-help groups and rural credit | Verb choice, adverbs of degree, collocations |
| Passage 3 | 11–15 | UPI and digital payments | Gerunds, phrasal verbs, idioms, verb forms |
| Passage 4 | 16–20 | The repo rate and inflation | Collocations, comparatives, idioms, adverbs |
| Total | 20 | 4 passages × 5 blanks | Mains level, 5 options each |
The answer key at the bottom spreads across all five options — A 4, B 4, C 4, D 4, E 4 — so no option dominates, and no option repeats more than once in a row. If your own mock answers cluster on one letter, that is a signal to re-check, not a pattern to trust.
How to Use This Set
Give yourself 15 minutes for the four passages — that is under a minute a blank, including the reading time, which matches the pace the RRB Mains English section demands. For each passage, read the whole text once from start to finish without looking at the options, and form a one-line summary in your head: "this passage is about how Jan Dhan accounts made welfare payments direct". Then go back and fill the blanks in order, saying each candidate word inside the sentence before you choose it. When two options both seem possible, test them against the whole passage, not the single sentence — the wrong one will clash with the tone or the facts two lines away. Mark every blank you guessed, and after the timer, rework the guessed ones before reading the explanations. A blank you got right by guessing is still a gap. Keep a notebook of the collocations that caught you — "pool their savings", "round the clock", "does not work overnight" — because cloze blanks test the same hundred collocations again and again, and each one you learn is a mark in the next paper.
How to Solve a Cloze Test
A cloze test is not twenty separate vocabulary questions; it is four short reading passages with holes in them, and the method is reading first and choosing second. Start by reading the entire passage without the options. You are looking for three things: the tense, the tone, and the argument. The tense tells you the verb form — a passage in the past tense will not take a present-tense verb in a blank, and a passage about a completed scheme will not take a future form. The tone tells you the register — a formal passage about the Reserve Bank will not take a casual word, and a passage about villagers saving together will not take a word that sounds like a boardroom. The argument tells you the direction — whether the passage is praising a scheme, describing a problem, or explaining a mechanism — and the direction decides the connectors: "as a result" for a consequence, "in spite of" for a contrast, "without" for an absence.
Once you know the passage, work blank by blank, and use four tests on each option. The grammar test: does the word fit the structure? After "meant", a verb must be a gerund — "meant searching", not "meant search" — and after "does not work", the adverb must be one that can describe a process, like "overnight". The collocation test: does the word pair naturally with its neighbours? "Pool their savings" is the phrase the self-help group movement uses; "count their savings" is grammatical but it is not the phrase, and the passage is about the movement, not about arithmetic. The idiom test: is the blank part of a fixed expression? "Round the clock" is one unit, "work overnight" is one unit, and "a familiar tool" is the way economists describe the repo rate. If the blank sits inside an idiom, only the idiom's word fits. The meaning test: does the word say what the passage is actually claiming? "Reduced the cost" is true of UPI; "removed the cost" claims the cost is zero, which the passage never says, so it fails on meaning even though it fits grammatically.
There are two traps to watch for. The first is the option that fits the sentence but contradicts the passage. In the self-help group passage, "lends" is the right word for a group giving money to its members, but "donates" fits the same sentence grammatically — it fails because a self-help group expects the money back, and the passage says the repayment rates are high. The second trap is the option that is true in the real world but wrong in the sentence. UPI did make payments faster, but "faster" is not an option shape the blank can take — the blank needs a verb, and only "completes" is a verb that fits. Always test the option in the sentence as written, not against what you know about the topic.
Cloze Test: Questions 1–20
Read each passage and choose the word that best fits each blank. Each blank has only one correct option.
Passage 1: Questions 1–5
When the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was launched in 2014, its aim was simple: give every household a bank account. Before the scheme, millions of families kept their savings at home, often in cash, where the money was neither safe nor (1). A bank account changed that. It gave people a secure place to keep money and, just as importantly, a way to receive government benefits (2) into their accounts. Over the years, the accounts have become the (3)____ of several welfare schemes, carrying scholarships, pensions and subsidies straight to the people they are meant for. (4)____ the RuPay card that comes with the account, holders can withdraw cash from any ATM and pay at shops without handling notes. The scheme shows that financial inclusion is not only about opening accounts; it is about (5)____ people use them.
Q1. Choose the word that best fits blank (1).
A. hidden B. spent C. productive D. borrowed E. counted
Answer: C — productive.
Explanation: The sentence contrasts two qualities of money kept at home: it was "neither safe nor productive". Cash lying at home earns no interest, so it is not productive. "Hidden" and "counted" do not contrast with "safe", "spent" contradicts the idea of savings kept at home, and "borrowed" makes no sense — the money was their own savings, not borrowed.
Q2. Choose the word that best fits blank (2).
A. directly B. lately C. rarely D. roughly E. slowly
Answer: A — directly.
Explanation: The point of the sentence is that benefits go straight into accounts without middlemen — "directly into their accounts". "Lately" is about time, "rarely" contradicts the scheme's purpose, "roughly" is about approximation, and "slowly" contradicts the idea of a direct transfer. Only "directly" carries the meaning the passage needs.
Q3. Choose the word that best fits blank (3).
A. burden B. branch C. boundary D. balance E. backbone
Answer: E — backbone.
Explanation: "Backbone" is the idiom for the central support of a system — the accounts have become the backbone of several welfare schemes. "Burden" would mean the accounts are a problem, which contradicts the passage's praise; "branch", "boundary" and "balance" are banking words but none of them fits the metaphor of central support.
Q4. Choose the word that best fits blank (4).
A. Without B. With C. Against D. Besides E. Except
Answer: B — With.
Explanation: The sentence says that, using the RuPay card, holders can withdraw cash — "With the RuPay card that comes with the account, holders can withdraw cash from any ATM". "Without" reverses the meaning, "against" and "except" do not fit the structure, and "besides" would mean "in addition to", which is not what the sentence claims.
Q5. Choose the word that best fits blank (5).
A. avoiding B. ignoring C. stopping D. ensuring E. delaying
Answer: D — ensuring.
Explanation: The passage's conclusion is that inclusion means making sure people actually use their accounts — "it is about ensuring people use them". "Avoiding", "ignoring", "stopping" and "delaying" all point the wrong way: they describe preventing use, while the whole passage argues for use.
Passage 2: Questions 6–10
In villages across India, self-help groups have quietly changed the way women (6)____ their savings. Each member contributes a small sum every week, and the group (7)____ the money to members who need it — for seeds, for cattle, for a small shop, or for a child's school fees. Because the loans come from a group the members trust, repayment rates are (8)____ high. Banks, too, have begun to (9)____ these groups as reliable borrowers, and many groups now hold accounts and take bank loans far larger than any single member could have borrowed alone. The success of the movement (10)____ that small, regular savings can build real financial strength, one week at a time.
Q6. Choose the word that best fits blank (6).
A. waste B. pool C. hide D. divide E. count
Answer: B — pool.
Explanation: "Pool their savings" is the standard phrase for what a self-help group does — members put their small sums together into one common fund. "Waste" and "hide" contradict the passage's praise, "divide" is the opposite of pooling, and "count" is grammatical but misses the point: the change is in combining the money, not in counting it.
Q7. Choose the word that best fits blank (7).
A. returns B. sells C. buries D. lends E. donates
Answer: D — lends.
Explanation: The group gives money to members who need it and expects it back — that is lending. "Donates" is wrong because a donation is not repaid, and the next sentence says repayment rates are high, which only makes sense for loans. "Returns" would need the money to have come from the members in the first place, "sells" and "buries" do not fit at all.
Q8. Choose the word that best fits blank (8).
A. remarkably B. rarely C. hardly D. poorly E. scarcely
Answer: A — remarkably.
Explanation: The sentence praises the repayment rates — they are "remarkably high". "Rarely", "hardly" and "scarcely" would all mean the rates are low, which contradicts the passage, and "poorly" cannot describe "high" at all. Only "remarkably" strengthens "high" in the direction the passage intends.
Q9. Choose the word that best fits blank (9).
A. ignore B. avoid C. treat D. punish E. suspect
Answer: C — treat.
Explanation: Banks have begun to "treat these groups as reliable borrowers" — to regard them in that way. "Ignore", "avoid", "punish" and "suspect" all describe the opposite attitude, and they contradict the sentence's second half, which says groups now take bank loans larger than any single member could have borrowed.
Q10. Choose the word that best fits blank (10).
A. hides B. doubts C. forgets D. denies E. proves
Answer: E — proves.
Explanation: The success of the movement demonstrates the claim that small savings build strength — it "proves" it. "Hides", "doubts", "forgets" and "denies" all reverse the meaning: a successful movement cannot hide or deny its own lesson.
Passage 3: Questions 11–15
A decade ago, paying a vegetable vendor meant (11)____ for change and hoping the vendor had it. Today, a quick scan of a QR code (12)____ the payment in seconds, and the money moves from one account to another without a single note changing hands. The Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, works (13)____ the clock, and it works for amounts as small as ten rupees. Small shopkeepers, who once (14)____ only in cash, now accept digital payments from customers they have never met, and the record of every payment sits safely in their bank statement. For banks, the rise of UPI has (15)____ the cost of handling small cash transactions, and for customers it has made paying as easy as sending a message.
Q11. Choose the word that best fits blank (11).
A. searching B. search C. searched D. searches E. to search
Answer: A — searching.
Explanation: After "meant", a verb must take the gerund form: "meant searching for change". "Search" is the bare infinitive and cannot follow "meant", "searched" and "searches" are the wrong forms, and "to search" does not fit the structure — "meant to search" would mean something was intended to search, which is not the sense here.
Q12. Choose the word that best fits blank (12).
A. delays B. refuses C. cancels D. confuses E. completes
Answer: E — completes.
Explanation: The sentence describes the payment going through in seconds — a QR scan "completes the payment". "Delays", "refuses" and "cancels" all describe the payment failing, which contradicts the passage's praise of UPI, and "confuses" cannot take "the payment" as its object in this sense.
Q13. Choose the word that best fits blank (13).
A. against B. under C. without D. round E. across
Answer: D — round.
Explanation: "Round the clock" is a fixed idiom meaning all day and all night. "Against the clock" means in a hurry, which is not the sense here; "under", "without" and "across" do not form an idiom with "the clock" at all.
Q14. Choose the word that best fits blank (14).
A. trade B. trading C. dealt D. deals E. to deal
Answer: C — dealt.
Explanation: The sentence is in the past tense — "who once dealt only in cash" — because it describes what shopkeepers did a decade ago, before UPI. "Trade" and "deals" are present tense, "trading" needs a helping verb, and "to deal" does not fit the structure. Only the past tense "dealt" matches the time frame.
Q15. Choose the word that best fits blank (15).
A. raised B. reduced C. removed D. repeated E. repaired
Answer: B — reduced.
Explanation: UPI has made handling small cash transactions cheaper for banks — it has "reduced the cost". "Raised" contradicts the passage, "repeated" and "repaired" do not collocate with "the cost", and "removed" overstates the claim: the cost is lower, not zero, and the passage never says it has disappeared.
Passage 4: Questions 16–20
When prices rise too fast, the Reserve Bank of India reaches for a familiar (16): the repo rate. By raising the repo rate, the RBI makes borrowing (17) for banks, and banks pass that cost on to their customers through higher interest rates on loans. When loans become expensive, people borrow less and spend less, which (18)____ demand across the economy and slowly brings prices under control. The change does not work (19); it takes months for a rate decision to show up in shop prices, and the RBI watches the data carefully before moving again. For a bank officer, the repo rate is (20) the most watched number in the economy, because it shapes the cost of every loan the bank will make.
Q16. Choose the word that best fits blank (16).
A. excuse B. mistake C. rumour D. tool E. delay
Answer: D — tool.
Explanation: Economists describe the repo rate as a "tool" of monetary policy — an instrument the central bank uses to achieve a goal. "Excuse", "mistake", "rumour" and "delay" do not collocate with "familiar" in this sense, and none of them describes an instrument of policy.
Q17. Choose the word that best fits blank (17).
A. cheaper B. costlier C. easier D. faster E. simpler
Answer: B — costlier.
Explanation: Raising the repo rate makes borrowing more expensive for banks — "costlier". "Cheaper" and "easier" reverse the mechanism the passage is explaining, and "faster" and "simpler" describe speed and simplicity, not cost, which is what the sentence is about.
Q18. Choose the word that best fits blank (18).
A. raises B. doubles C. cools D. creates E. ignores
Answer: C — cools.
Explanation: When people borrow and spend less, demand falls — the passage's verb for this is "cools", as in "cooling demand". "Raises", "doubles" and "creates" all describe demand increasing, which is the opposite of what happens when loans become expensive, and "ignores" cannot take "demand" as its object in this sense.
Q19. Choose the word that best fits blank (19).
A. slowly B. clearly C. partly D. rarely E. overnight
Answer: E — overnight.
Explanation: "Does not work overnight" is the idiom for a change that takes time — the next clause confirms it: "it takes months for a rate decision to show up in shop prices". "Slowly" would contradict the "does not" — the change does work slowly — and "clearly", "partly" and "rarely" do not pair with the months-long delay the passage describes.
Q20. Choose the word that best fits blank (20).
A. arguably B. accidentally C. carelessly D. unwillingly E. doubtfully
Answer: A — arguably.
Explanation: "Arguably the most watched number" means it can reasonably be claimed to be the most watched — a careful, defensible judgement. "Accidentally" and "carelessly" describe mistakes, "unwillingly" describes reluctance, and "doubtfully" would undermine the claim the sentence is making. Only "arguably" fits a measured statement about importance.
Answer Key
| Question | Answer | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | C | Q11 | A |
| Q2 | A | Q12 | E |
| Q3 | E | Q13 | D |
| Q4 | B | Q14 | C |
| Q5 | D | Q15 | B |
| Q6 | B | Q16 | D |
| Q7 | D | Q17 | B |
| Q8 | A | Q18 | C |
| Q9 | C | Q19 | E |
| Q10 | E | Q20 | A |
Key spread: A 4, B 4, C 4, D 4, E 4. No option is correct more than four times out of twenty, and no option repeats more than once in a row anywhere in the key.
Common Mistakes
The first and most expensive mistake in the cloze test is filling the blank from the sentence alone. In Q5, "ensuring" is right only because the whole passage argues for people using their accounts; the single sentence "it is about ___ people use them" could take several words. In Q9, "treat" is right because the passage goes on to say groups now take large bank loans — the sentence alone does not rule out "suspect". Always read the whole passage first. The second mistake is choosing the word that is true in the real world instead of the word that fits the sentence. In Q15, "removed" is tempting because UPI genuinely cut costs dramatically, but the passage says the cost is lower, not gone — "reduced" is the word the sentence can support. The third mistake is ignoring the verb form the grammar demands. In Q11, "meant searching" is the only grammatical option, and no amount of meaning can rescue "meant search". In Q14, the passage's past tense decides the blank before meaning is even considered. The fourth mistake is missing the idiom. "Round the clock" in Q13 and "does not work overnight" in Q19 are fixed units — if you do not know the idiom, all five options look equally plausible, and you will guess. Idioms cannot be worked out from first principles; they have to be learned, which is why a notebook of cloze collocations is the highest-value revision tool for this block. The fifth mistake is choosing a word that fits the blank but reverses the passage's direction. "Donates" in Q7 fits the sentence grammatically, but it kills the next sentence about repayment rates. "Cheaper" in Q17 fits the grammar, but it reverses the whole mechanism of the repo rate. Every option must be tested against the passage's argument, not just its grammar. Finally, never spend more than a minute on a single blank. A cloze blank you cannot solve in a minute is a blank you do not know the collocation for, and staring at it will not teach it to you — mark your best guess, finish the passage, and learn the collocation afterwards.
Memory Tricks
Four habits make cloze tests much easier, and they are all cheap to practise. First, the one-line summary: after your first read of a passage, say in one line what it is about — "Jan Dhan made welfare payments direct", "self-help groups pool savings and lend", "UPI made small payments instant", "the repo rate cools demand". If you cannot summarise it, you have not understood it, and no blank is safe yet. Second, the collocation notebook: every time a cloze explanation gives you a fixed phrase — "pool their savings", "backbone of the scheme", "round the clock", "work overnight", "cool demand", "arguably the most" — write it down with one example sentence of your own. A hundred such phrases cover most of what the exam can ask. Third, the grammar-first filter: before you think about meaning, throw out every option that is grammatically impossible — the wrong verb form, the wrong preposition, the wrong part of speech. In this set, the grammar filter alone removes two or three options from most blanks. Fourth, the direction check: decide whether the blank needs a positive word or a negative one. In Q8 the passage is praising repayment, so the blank needs a word that strengthens "high" — "remarkably" — and the three negative options can be discarded in a second. Direction first, exact word second.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many cloze test questions come in the IBPS RRB Mains English section?
The English section as a whole is 40 questions for 40 marks in 30 minutes, and a cloze passage is usually five blanks. The paper typically carries one or two passages, so you should expect five to ten cloze questions in the RRB Mains, alongside reading comprehension, error spotting, fillers and sentence rearrangement. The exact split varies from year to year.
Is there negative marking in the cloze test?
Yes. Every wrong answer in the English section costs 0.25 marks, including cloze blanks. That is why guessing between two options you cannot separate is a poor trade — a wrong guess loses a quarter mark, while a blank left unattempted loses nothing. If two options survive your grammar and meaning tests, pick the one that matches the passage's tone, and move on.
Should I read the passage first or the blanks first?
Read the passage first, in full, without looking at the options. The passage gives you the tense, the tone and the argument, and half the blanks are decided by that context. Candidates who jump straight to the blanks end up choosing words that fit one sentence and contradict the passage two lines later.
What is a collocation, and why does it matter in cloze tests?
A collocation is a pair of words that naturally go together in English — "pool savings", "round the clock", "cool demand", "backbone of a scheme". Cloze blanks very often test collocations rather than single words, which is why a word can be grammatically correct and still wrong: "count their savings" is grammatical, but "pool their savings" is the collocation the passage needs. The only way to learn collocations is to meet them and write them down.
How do I choose between two options that both seem correct?
Test each one against three things in order: grammar, collocation, and the passage's argument. If both survive grammar, the collocation usually decides it — one of them is the phrase English actually uses. If both survive that too, test them against the passage's direction: one will support what the passage is claiming and the other will quietly contradict it, as "donates" contradicts the repayment sentence in Q7.
Are the cloze passages in the RRB Mains about banking topics?
Often, yes. RRB papers favour passages about banking, rural economy, financial inclusion and agriculture — the world their candidates will work in — which is why this set uses Jan Dhan, self-help groups, UPI and the repo rate. But the paper also uses general passages, so do not rely on topic knowledge alone; the grammar and collocation skills in this set transfer to any passage.
Practice Next
- Cloze Test Tricks for Bank Exams — the method behind this set, with one worked passage.
- Error Spotting Rules for Bank Exams — the grammar rules that decide half the cloze blanks.
- Reading Comprehension Tricks for Bank Exams — how to read a passage once and answer five questions from it.
- SBI Clerk English Questions — Mains-level English practice for SBI Clerk.
- IBPS RRB PO Syllabus and Exam Pattern — the full RRB PO Mains pattern and syllabus.
- IBPS RRB Clerk Syllabus and Exam Pattern — the full RRB Clerk Mains pattern and syllabus.
- IBPS RRB PO Previous Year Question Paper — previous-year papers for RRB PO.
- IBPS RRB Clerk Previous Year Question Paper — previous-year papers for RRB Clerk.
- IBPS RRB PO Mains English Language Sectional Mock Test 01 — timed English practice at RRB PO Mains level.
- IBPS RRB Clerk Mains English Language Sectional Mock Test 01 — timed English practice at RRB Clerk Mains level.
Sources: IBPS RRB PO and IBPS RRB Clerk Mains exam patterns as per the official notifications for the 2026 cycle; all passages and questions in this set are original and written for this page. As of 6 November 2026.