Cloze Passage Success: Mastering Word Collocations with Verb + Preposition Combinations

Cloze Passage Success starts with understanding common word collocations! Hello, everyone! I am Ms Zaheda, a teacher here at Lil’ but Mighty. Welcome to my first-ever blog post, and I hope you are as excited as I am to get started. Today, we will delve into the world of collocations, focusing on how verb + preposition combinations can enhance your vocabulary and improve your performance in cloze passages.

What is a word collocation? Well, it is a natural combination of 2 or more words that are closely affiliated with each other. When these words or phrases are used together, they sound ‘right’ or ‘correct’, especially to native speakers of the language. You may even be using them in your daily life without noticing! For example, when Mummy asks you to make the bed before you leave for school, or you tell a sibling who is losing in a game to admit defeat, you are actually using collocations!

Why is it important to familiarise yourself with collocations? First of all, understanding collocations can help you improve and grow your own vocabulary, allowing you to understand and communicate with others more effectively. More importantly, collocations appear and are tested frequently in Cloze Passage, Editing and even Vocabulary sections of Paper 2. Hence, having a good knowledge of collocations will definitely help you score better in these sections! Using the right combination of words is also important for your compositions as this will affect the language component where you will be expected to use accurate language and avoid making expression errors.

Since there are so many collocations, you may wonder where a good starting point will be or whether there is a way to categorise them so as to make it easier for you to learn them. One way would be to look at the different combinations of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. Some common combinations include:

• verb + preposition e.g. beg for food (x beg at food)
• verb + noun e.g. impose a ban (x give a ban)
• verb + adverb e.g. speak loudly (x speak soundly)
• adjective + noun e.g. grave danger (x awful danger)
• adverb + adjective e.g. deeply ashamed (x heavily ashamed)

As a start, I will be looking at 10 common verb + preposition collocations. As you look through the list, take note of the correct verb and preposition combinations:

1. abide by – to obey or comply (with a rule)
   Sentence: On the first day of school, students were reminded to abide by the rules.
2. attend to – to deal with (a task, problem etc.)
   Sentence: Raise your hand and the teacher will attend to you shortly.
3. object to – to feel or express opposition to or dislike
   Sentence: We object to her suggestion of skipping the remedial lesson.
4. rely on – to trust something or someone to do what you need
   Sentence: Prefects can be relied on to carry their duties out responsibly.
5. considerate of – careful not to inconvenience or harm others
   Sentence: Do be considerate of the students who are taking their exams and keep your volume down.
6. exempt from – to be excused from a duty, payment etc.
   Sentence: Nozomi is a foreign student, so she is exempt from taking Mother Tongue lessons.
7. deal with – to take action to achieve something or to solve a problem
   Sentence: The pupils had to deal with loud noise coming from the nearby construction site.
8. approve of – to have a positive opinion of someone or something; to accept or allowSentence: Mr Wong does not approve of students turning in their homework late.
9. succeed in – to achieve something you have been aiming for
   Sentence: The class succeeded in convincing the teacher to allow them to leave early for recess.
10. suffer from – to experience physical or mental pain
    Sentence: My classmate suffers from terrible headaches, especially when she is feeling stressed.

Now, let’s test our understanding of some of these collocations with a short quiz! See if you can match the verb to the correct preposition.

Question 1:
“This problem should have been attended _____________ last month! Why is it still recurring?” Mr Lee demanded.

1) from
2) with
3) to
4) of

Answer: (3) —> attend + to

Question 2:

Janet forgot that she had been exempted _____________ attending the workshop.

1) in
2) from
3) of
4) with

Answer: (2) —> exempt + from

Question 3:
The students relied ___________ the pictures to understand the topic.

1) on
2) in
3) of
4) to

Answer: (1) —> rely + on

Question 4:
Not abiding ___________ the talent show rules may prevent you from being selected during the try-outs.

1) to
2) with
3) of
4) by

Answer: (4) —> abide + by

Question 5:

Maya’s mother approves _________ Maya’s plan to study abroad.

1) on
2) by
3) of
4) to

Answer: (3) —> approve + of

I hope this post has given you a better insight into what collocations are and why it is beneficial for you to know them! Remember when dealing with verb + preposition collocations, you should always check to ensure that the verb is used with the correct preposition. See you next time!