gap fill

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   an exercise in which you write a missing word or phrase into a blank space

   Grammar: Countable: say 'a gap fill' or 'gap fills'. It is often used before another noun, as in 'a gap-fill test'.

   Patterns

   • do a gap fill
   • a gap fill about something

   The teacher gave us a gap fill to practice the past tense.

   Each gap fill in the test has only one correct answer.

   I finished the gap fill faster than the reading section.

2. 2noununcountable

   the activity or technique of completing missing words in a text

   Grammar: Uncountable when talking about the method in general: 'Gap fill is useful for vocabulary review.'

   Patterns

   • use gap fill
   • gap fill for something

   Gap fill is a quick way to check whether students know the new words.

   She uses gap fill at the start of every lesson.

   Gap fill works well for listening practice with song lyrics.

Word forms

Common combinations

gap-fill exercise

We did a short gap-fill exercise before the discussion.

gap-fill test

The placement test includes a gap-fill section.

do a gap fill

Please do the gap fill on page ten.

gap-fill activity

The gap-fill activity took only five minutes.

Synonyms and how they differ

fill-in-the-blank

The usual American term for the same kind of exercise; 'gap fill' is more common in British teaching materials.

cloze

A technical term for a text with several words removed; a gap fill may be just one sentence with one blank.

Word family

gap noun

an empty space or missing part

fill verb

to put something into a space until it is full

fill in phrasal verb

to write the missing information in a form or blank

Commonly confused: gap fill or fill-up?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “gap fill”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

Explore more words