In the following passage, there are blanks each of which has been numbered.…
2024
In the following passage, there are blanks each of which has been numbered. These numbers are printed below the passage and against each, words have been suggested, one of which fills the blanks appropriately.
Recently the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released separate reports on poverty. The World Bank (___1___) its benchmark of extreme poverty by 25 cents from $1 per person per day to $1.25 per person a day. The ADB announced an even (___2___) benchmark of $1.35 per person a day. These new benchmarks are based on surveys in the world’s poorest countries. Experts often like to claim that poverty has declined because of economic growth in India and China. This is wrong and (___3___). In the past twenty-five years the poverty rate in India has (___4___) by less than one percentage point a year. Whether we use a poverty line of $1 per person per day or $1.25 per person per day makes little difference. The number of poor in India is large. The purpose of these statistics is not to dispute them but to (___5___) whether the benefits of economic growth are being shared with the poor.
Find out the appropriate word in 4th case.
- A.
deplete
- B.
plunge
- C.
declined
- D.
weaken
Attempted by 3 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept: In a fill-in-the-blank vocabulary/grammar question, the correct word must satisfy two checks together — it must be able to take the exact grammatical form the sentence needs (here, a past participle after the auxiliary “has”), and it must fit the meaning/collocation implied by the context, i.e. the specific direction and DEGREE of change described, not merely be a word from the same general theme.
Application: The sentence needs a word directly after “has” that is already a valid past participle and that collocates with “by [amount] a year” to express a small, gradual numerical change. Among the four choices, “declined” is the only one already in that exact form; “deplete”, “plunge” and “weaken” are given in their base (infinitive) form and would first need to become “depleted”, “plunged” and “weakened” to even fit grammatically. Checking meaning confirms the same choice: “deplete” is normally transitive (something depletes a resource) and does not idiomatically describe a rate on its own; “plunge/plunged” specifically signals a sudden, sharp fall, which conflicts with the passage's own qualifier “less than one percentage point a year” (a slow, marginal change); and “weaken/weakened” is the natural word for a loss of strength or intensity, not the natural collocation for a numerical rate — “the poverty rate has weakened” is not idiomatic here. “Declined” alone satisfies both the required form and the required sense of a small, gradual decrease.
Cross-check: Substituting “declined” gives “In the past twenty-five years the poverty rate in India has declined by less than one percentage point a year” — grammatically sound and consistent with the passage's larger argument that poverty has NOT fallen as sharply as often claimed, only marginally. This confirms “declined” is correct.