Reading Fill In the Blanks - 1 | Reading Section for PTE PDF Download

Q1: Supported by Sherman tanks of the 751st Tank Battalion, the mountaineers ________ pushed the Germans out of their bunkers and off the________ , only to be on the receiving end of tremendous artillery and mortar barrages and numerous ________ counter attacks that took place for four days. Despite the bitter fighting and the heavy casualties, the hill mass was finally secured by February 24. The 10th had had its long-sought baptism of fire. Most importantly, the mountaineers had ________ themselves and had accomplished their mission; the German grip on the northern Apennines was finally________
(Suffering, proven, depths, shattered, heights, gradually, messy, disorganized)

Q2: The men of the 10th celebrated the ______ of the war in the one way that seemed ________ appropriate for them: They organized a ski race. On the crusty summer snows of Mount Mangart, where the borders of Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia come together, the 10th’s best skiers ________ each other. First Sergeant Walter Prager, the Dartmouth ski team coach, won. It ________ a fitting way not only to end a war, but to begin a new world.
(Seemed, challenged, end, commonly, confronted, uniquely)

Q3: Major streets were barricaded, houses were ________ with gun loopholes, and artillery platforms were erected. The Gross Garten, or Great Garden, a landscaped park that lay to the southeast, ________ by a wall, guarded Dresden’s approaches in that direction and was considered a________.
Napoleon directed that the seven gates to the suburbs be ______ and the Pirna Gate be strengthened by excavating a ditch in front of it that could be ________ with water. Saint-Cyr was counting primarily on the 13 redoubts that ringed the city like a necklace.
(Occupied, obstructed, filled, weakness, fitted, strongpoint, blocked, surrounded)

Q4: As bridges ______ the River would be subject to strong defence, and to avoid the likelihood of detection, the site chosen for the ________ was between the bridges. Two strong swimmers from among the New Zealand Troops went back to the River in the evening. They took across the first constructions of ________ boats – thick canvas pull-up sides with struts to hold in place (like canvas buckets). More troops soon followed pulling themselves across on the boats to ________ on the north bank. The pontoon boats were ________ together, with big duckboards on top, to form a floating platform for the crossing and amphibious tanks made their own way
(moored, raft, crossing, junction, terminated, pontoon, watch, over, guard)

Q5: The soldiers studied the rock face for a very long time, speaking ________ as they scanned the shale with ________ and jotting notes onto a map of the area. The map named this series of connected peaks Monte Della Riva. The troops simply called it Riva Ridge. They could see places on the ridge that looked fairly easy to________ , and other parts of the trail that offered more of a challenge—places where snow and ice ____________ to shadowy crevasses, places where small waterfalls cascaded over rock, places where the shale looked loose and easily broken. What they could not see but knew was there was an alert German battalion on the summit, just waiting for the Allies to make another __________ attempt on the neighboring mountain, Monte Belvedere.
(Rash, navigate, foolhardy, noiselessly, binoculars, pilot, clung, quietly)

Q6: Nowhere was the fighting more ________ than on the far eastern spur of the ridge known as Pizzo di Campiano. Here, Lieutenant James Loose and a dozen of his men from Company A of the 86th became __________ from the rest of their platoon and ________ two enemy companies—a much larger force than intelligence had estimated was there. At 0500 hours, the battle for the ________ began. The Yanks were hit by a flurry of grenades, then attacked several times, each time fighting off the attacks with their ________ supply of ammunition.
(Bourgeoning, separated, dwindling, whole, spur, met, intense, encountered)

Q7: During those first few weeks following the 10th’s entry into the line, there was little heavy fighting, only ______ and desultory exchanges of artillery. But General Hays had not brought his men all this way just to hold a defensive________ , and soon a new offensive was in the works, one that would pit the 10th Mountain Division in the valley against the Germans holding the high ground.
Hays’ staff officers pointed out that previous attempts to take Monte Belvedere, overlooking Highway 64, had ____________ because German artillery observers on Riva Ridge could spot any ____________ toward the mountain and bring deadly accurate fire down upon the attackers. The key to taking Belvedere, they argued, was Riva Ridge. The operation, then, was planned for Riva Ridge to be ____________ and held the night before the main assault climbed Monte Belvedere. But, first, routes to the top of Riva Ridge needed to be found.
(Stricken, assaulted, status, sporadic, position, association, regular, failed, movement)

Q8: In 2012 the IPCC concluded that there is limited to medium evidence available to ________ climate-driven observed changes in the magnitude and frequency of floods at a regional scale because the available ____________ records of floods at gauge stations are limited in space and time, and because of confounding effects of changes in land use and engineering. Furthermore, there is low agreement in this evidence, and thus overall low confidence at the global scale regarding even the __________ of these changes. There is low confidence (due to limited evidence) that anthropogenic climate change has ____________ the magnitude or frequency of floods, though it has detectably influenced several components of the hydrological cycle such as precipitation and snowmelt (medium confidence to high confidence), which may ________ flood trends.
(Waves, instrumental, impact, tangential, assess, natural, sign, affected)

Q9: Farthest to the east, Sword Beach boasts the original Pegasus Bridge, preserved at the Pegasus Bridge Museum. The museum ________ the story of all the British airborne operations in the Battle of Normandy, including the ________ of Horsa gliders just yards from the bridge. Visitors can walk the actual bridge behind the museum to see a ________ dedicated to a British soldier killed during the ________ on Sword Beach, and view WWII-vintage vehicles, a bailey bridge and the remains of a Horsa glider.
(Defense, assault, tells, landing, articulates, plaque)

Q10: The writer-or, for that matter, the speaker conceives his thought whole, as a unity, but must express it in a line of words; the reader- or listener-must take this line of symbols and from _______ it  the original wholeness of thought. There is _______ difficulty in conversation, because the listener receives innumerable cues from the physical expressions of the speaker; there is a dialogue, and the listener can _______ at any time. The advantage of group discussion is that people can overcome linear sequence of words by _______ on ideas from different directions; which makes for wholeness of thought. But the reader is confronted by line upon line of printed symbols, without benefits of physical _______ and emphasis or the possibility of dialogue or discussion.
(reconstruct, little , tone, converging , cut in)