Six words sit in the box, but the passage has only four gaps. Several options belong to the same topic. Your task is not to find a topical word; it is to restore the text.
A second dataset helped ______ the original finding.
Evidence, substantial, and corroborate may all seem related to research. Only corroborate fits the grammar after helped, takes the original finding as its object, and expresses support from additional evidence.
Pearson's current Reading format names this question type Fill in the Blanks (Drag and Drop). A text of up to 80 words appears with gaps, and you move words from a box into the passage. There are more words than gaps, so some options remain unused. You can move a word between gaps or return it to the box. Pearson says this item assesses Reading and uses partial-credit scoring: correctly completed blanks earn points even if another blank is wrong.
Keep it distinct from Fill in the Blanks (Dropdown), where each gap has its own drop-down options and the passage may be longer. It is also distinct from Listening Fill in the Blanks (Type In). This guide does not invent a negative-marking rule: Pearson's current page describes partial credit for the drag-and-drop task.
Use the PTE Academic vocabulary hub for more task-level practice, or browse the full Exam English hub.
The elimination ladder
Test each gap in this order:
- Grammar: What part of speech and form can occupy the slot?
- Collocation: Which option forms a normal phrase with nearby words?
- Local meaning: What relationship does this sentence express?
- Cohesion: How does the choice connect with the sentence before and after it?
- Claim strength: Does the option say more than the evidence supports?
Grammar often removes several options quickly. It does not always decide the answer. Two adjectives may both fit structurally, leaving meaning and cohesion to separate them.
1. Corroborate: support an existing claim with more evidence
Corroborate is a transitive verb. Evidence, records, testimony, or another source can corroborate a claim, account, finding, or explanation.
Independent records corroborated the survey responses.
The evidence is normally the subject, and the claim it supports is the object. No preposition separates the verb from that object. The word does not mean prove conclusively; it strengthens something already partly established.
In a blank, look for an evidence sequence: an initial claim appears, and another source later supports it. A single example that merely makes an idea easier to understand illustrates it; it does not necessarily corroborate it.
2. Substantial: large or important in amount or degree
Substantial is an adjective in phrases such as substantial evidence, a substantial increase, substantial support, and a substantial difference.
The revised method produced a substantial reduction in waste.
The adverb is substantially: costs were substantially lower. The word describes amount, degree, extent, or importance. It does not add certainty, permanence, or sole causation.
If a blank precedes evidence, both substantial and another evaluative adjective may be grammatical. Read the next sentence. If it emphasizes a large body of evidence, substantial may fit. If it emphasizes that the evidence is temporary or awaiting confirmation, a different status word may be required.
3. Negligible: too small to affect this decision
Negligible means so small or slight that it is not worth considering in the context.
The difference in energy use was negligible at this scale.
Natural nouns include effect, impact, risk, cost, amount, and difference. The judgment is contextual. A tiny measurement error can be negligible for one decision but important in another.
Do not confuse negligible with negligent, meaning careless. The first can modify difference; the second typically describes a person, organization, or conduct.
4. Provisional: in place for now, not final
Provisional describes an arrangement, figure, schedule, agreement, or conclusion accepted for the present but subject to confirmation or revision.
The team issued a provisional estimate pending laboratory analysis.
The phrase pending laboratory analysis supplies the confirmation step. This is not simply a weak opinion. A tentative explanation may be cautious or hesitant; a provisional estimate can function as the working estimate until better data arrive.
Watch cohesion words such as pending, until, initially, and later revised. They make an interim-status option more likely.
Understanding is only the first step.
Lyra Practice helps you retrieve and use high-value workplace expressions in realistic situations until they feel natural.
Start a practice session →5. Prevalent: widespread, not necessarily dominant
Prevalent means widespread or commonly occurring. Use prevalent in + place or field, prevalent among + group, and increasingly prevalent.
The practice is prevalent among small manufacturers.
It does not mean the practice is the main or largest category. That stronger comparison belongs to predominant. If a passage says a behavior occurs in many settings but provides no rank among alternatives, prevalent preserves the evidence.
The noun is prevalence. A gap after the and before of may require the noun; a gap after became increasingly requires the adjective.
6. Conducive to: favorable conditions, not guaranteed cause
Conducive to means tending to promote or provide suitable conditions for a result.
Regular pauses can create conditions conducive to sustained attention.
The form is conducive to + noun or gerund: conducive to discussion, conducive to learning. Do not use conducive for or conducive to learn in this pattern.
The expression makes a limited causal claim. It says a condition tends to help an outcome, not that the condition guarantees or solely causes it. That boundary matters when the passage is carefully qualified.
Worked drag-and-drop passage
This is original practice, not a Pearson item.
Word box: conducive · corroborate · negligible · prevalent · provisional · substantial · predominant · negligent
Shared workspaces have become increasingly (1) ______ in research organizations. Supporters argue that informal contact creates conditions (2) ______ to exchanging ideas. An internal review found a (3) ______ rise in cross-team consultations, while the change in individual output was (4) ______. However, the review covered only one site, so its conclusion remains (5) ______. Results from other sites would be needed to (6) ______ the finding.
Answers
- prevalent — increasingly plus an adjective describes widespread adoption; the passage does not rank this model as the largest category.
- conducive — the fixed frame is conducive to exchanging; it describes supportive conditions.
- substantial — the adjective modifies rise and says the increase was large or important.
- negligible — after was, the adjective says the change was too small to matter in this analysis.
- provisional — a narrow one-site review makes the conclusion subject to later confirmation.
- corroborate — needed to requires a base verb; other sites would add support to an existing finding.
Predominant remains unused because no comparison shows that shared workspaces are the main model. Negligent remains unused because the passage makes no claim about careless conduct.
Why word-box management matters
Because one option can normally be placed only once, an early guess affects later gaps. Do not force a weak answer simply because you have already used a strong candidate elsewhere.
On the first pass, place high-confidence combinations:
- a fixed frame: conducive to
- a clear grammar slot: to corroborate
- a strong noun partnership: substantial rise
Then reread the remaining sentence sequence. Only one site followed by other sites would be needed creates a provisional-to-corroboration progression. Passage cohesion decides those choices more safely than isolated synonym matching.
A contrast set
Choose the option that preserves the stated evidence.
1. Prevalent or predominant?
Surveys found the practice in hospitals, schools, and local councils, but did not compare its frequency with other practices. It was ______ across several sectors.
Prevalent. The evidence establishes spread, not first rank.
2. Substantial or negligible?
Waiting time fell from 42 minutes to 19 minutes, a change the service treated as operationally important. The reduction was ______.
Substantial. The size and stated importance defeat negligible.
3. Provisional or conclusive?
The estimate will be replaced after the full census is complete. For now, the agency is using a ______ figure.
Provisional. The figure is active temporarily pending a named confirmation step.
4. Corroborate or illustrate?
A second, independently collected dataset produced the same pattern and helped ______ the original result.
Corroborate. The second dataset is additional supporting evidence, not merely an example.
Common traps
- Topic matching: every option may concern research, but only one completes the relationship.
- Stopping at grammar: two adjectives can fit the slot while only one fits the evidence.
- Ignoring the suffix: substantial modifies a noun; substantially modifies an adjective, adverb, or comparison.
- Overreading a status: provisional means working but not final, not worthless or necessarily doubtful.
- Overclaiming causation: conducive to does not guarantee an outcome.
- Flattening evidence verbs: an example can illustrate; additional evidence can corroborate.
- Confusing the task variants: drag-and-drop uses a shared word box with surplus options; dropdown supplies options at each gap.
- Inventing a penalty strategy: Pearson describes partial-credit scoring for this task; use the official scoring information rather than folklore.
Controlled practice
Word box: substantial · provisionally · corroborated · conducive · negligible · prevalent · predominance
The pilot was (1) ______ approved for six months while the board awaited the full trial report. Managers created a schedule (2) ______ to uninterrupted work, and later attendance records (3) ______ staff reports of fewer disruptions. The reduction was (4) ______, not merely measurable, while the additional equipment cost was (5) ______ relative to the annual budget.
Answers: 1. provisionally, because an adverb modifies approved and the pending report is the defined confirmation step before a final decision. 2. conducive, because the fixed frame takes to + noun. 3. corroborated, because records supplied additional evidence in the past. 4. substantial, because the contrast says the reduction was large or important. 5. negligible, because the cost was too small to affect the budget decision.
After checking, explain why each unused option fails. That final elimination step trains the exact difference between a related word and the word the restored passage requires.
Sources
- PTE Academic test format: Reading — Pearson
- PTE Academic Scoring — Pearson
- The Academic Collocation List: Classroom Resource for PTE Preparation — Pearson
Related
- PTE Fill in the Blanks (Dropdown) vocabulary
- PTE vocabulary list by question type
- PTE vocabulary range and the Score Guide
- PTE Describe Image trend vocabulary
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