In the following passage, there are blanks each of which has been numbered.…
2025
In the following passage, there are blanks each of which has been numbered.
These numbers correspond to the question numbers; against each question, five words have been suggested, one of which fills the blanks appropriately. Claude Picasso once said: “I could have been born into any family. I was fortunate that I was born to an artist as extraordinary as Picasso, and Picasso turned out to be the family business.” Most of us who run family businesses can (___1____) with the words of Claude Picasso. There is great satisfaction that comes from trying to grow and build a dream that was (___2___) by one’s family. While I am not the biggest believer in (___3___), I realise that
there is a great responsibility to carry ahead the company built by previous generations and in turn pass it on to future generations.
Today, family business is the most common form of enterprise. However, with the pros come the cons. Standard wisdom is that the first generation starts the company, the second builds it and the third (___4____) the business. This is particularly true because they are brought up with silver spoons and want to start their own businesses. Also, they are tech-savvy, talented and armed with attractive foreign university degrees. But they also have to (__5___) with the fear of the unknown. Not all startups that we see mushrooming these days are successful.
Find out the appropriate word in 5th case.
- A.
Commend
- B.
Face
- C.
Happy
- D.
Contend
Attempted by 2 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
In a vocabulary-based cloze blank, the correct word must satisfy two things at once: its meaning must fit the sense of the sentence, and it must combine naturally with any preposition already fixed in the sentence (a collocation). A word that means something close but does not pair idiomatically with the given preposition, or that is the wrong part of speech, cannot be the answer even if its general meaning seems related.
The blank appears in the clause 'they also have to (___5___) with the fear of the unknown', so the missing word must be a verb that idiomatically takes the preposition 'with' and conveys struggling against or grappling with a difficulty.
“Commend” means to praise; it does not take “with” in this sense and does not fit a context about struggling with fear.
“Face” normally functions as a direct transitive verb (“face the fear”) or in the passive (“be faced with”); the active phrase “have to face with” is not standard, so it does not fit the fixed construction “___ with”.
“Happy” is an adjective, not a verb, so it cannot occupy a verb slot after “have to”.
“Contend” is a verb that regularly collocates with “with” — “contend with” means to struggle against or grapple with a difficulty — which precisely matches “the fear of the unknown” faced by third-generation family-business owners described in the passage.
Reading the full sentence back with “contend” confirms the fit: “they also have to contend with the fear of the unknown” is a grammatically standard and semantically coherent English collocation, unlike the other three options.
Therefore, the word that correctly fills the 5th blank is “Contend”.