In the following passage, there are blanks each of which has been numbered.…
2026
In the following passage, there are blanks each of which has been numbered. These numbers correspond to the question numbers. Against each question, four words have been suggested, one of which would fill the blank appropriately. Mark the suitable word as the answer.
Use of plastic has become part of a_____(1)_____ in which those who consume and litter are not supposed to be responsible for _____(2)_____ cleaning after themselves or to bother about what will happen to the waste they are producing. The _____(3)_____ of this kind of lifestyle are reflected in the festering garbage in the over spilling landfill sites, with the height of the Ghazipur landfill in Delhi touching 65 metres. Such _____(4)_____ dumps are emerging as a serious threat to life with leachates in the mixed and untreated waste contaminating water and the carcinogenic pollution _____(5)_____ when it is set to fire.
Find out the appropriate word in case 4
- A.
Wasteful
- B.
Hogwash
- C.
Wasting
- D.
Rubbish
Attempted by 4 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
In cloze-passage vocabulary questions, the correct word must satisfy two things at once: (a) it must be usable in the required grammatical position -- here, a modifier directly before a noun, which can be an adjective or a noun used attributively (as in 'rubbish dump') -- and (b) it must form a natural, idiomatic collocation that keeps the sentence's meaning consistent with the surrounding context (often echoing a term already used earlier in the passage).
The sentence just before the blank states that garbage collects and festers in the over spilling landfill sites. The blank at (4) sits directly before the noun dumps in 'Such _____ dumps are emerging as a serious threat to life', so the missing word must combine with dumps -- as an adjective or attributive noun -- to name that same kind of place.
Wasteful is used for an inefficient action, habit, or use of resources -- as in 'wasteful spending' -- describing a quality of behaviour, not a name for a physical heap of refuse.
Hogwash's everyday sense is nonsense or empty talk; even its older, less common sense of pig-swill refers only to kitchen scraps, not general landfill refuse, so 'hogwash dumps' has no established, idiomatic reading in this context.
Wasting is the participle in phrases like 'wasting away' or 'wasting a resource', describing a gradual process of decline or consumption, not a label for a type of dump.
Rubbish is the everyday term for household and other discarded refuse -- the very material that fills a landfill site -- and 'rubbish dump' is the standard English phrase for such a site, continuing the garbage/landfill reference from the preceding sentence.
Rubbish is therefore the word that both fits the grammar (used attributively before a plural noun, the same way 'rubbish dump' is a standard English phrase) and matches the passage's established meaning, making it the appropriate word for blank (4).