What a cloze test is
A cloze passage removes roughly 10-15 words and replaces each with a numbered blank. For each blank you're given four option words, and only one fits both the grammar and the meaning of that exact spot -- not just any word that could plausibly fit an isolated sentence.
Read the whole passage first
Never fill blanks as you meet them on a first read. Read the entire passage once, ignoring the blanks, to understand the overall topic and tone. This context often makes an otherwise-tricky blank obvious, because you already know what the passage is generally about.
Using the words before and after the blank
The words immediately surrounding a blank usually narrow it down more than the whole passage does. Check what part of speech is needed (noun, verb, adjective, preposition) and whether the sentence needs a word that matches the tense and number of nearby verbs and subjects.
Example 1: "The farmers work hard every season, but the ___ rains this year destroyed most of the crop." Options: (a) heavy (b) strong (c) hard (d) big
The blank describes rain, and "rain" collocates specifically with "heavy" in standard English -- "strong rain" and "hard rain" are not the natural pairing JAMB expects, even though they might sound almost plausible in isolation.
Watching for collocations
Certain words are almost always paired with specific partners: "make a decision" (not "do a decision"), "heavy traffic," "strictly forbidden," "deeply concerned," "highly unlikely." When a blank sits next to a strong collocate, that partner word usually decides the answer.
Example 2: "The government has ___ forbidden the importation of the banned chemical." Options: (a) strictly (b) hardly (c) rarely (d) barely
"Strictly forbidden" is the standard collocation for an absolute ban -- the passage's meaning (a firm prohibition) also rules out "hardly," "rarely," and "barely," which all weaken the statement instead of strengthening it.
Keeping tense and grammar consistent
A cloze passage is usually written in one consistent tense throughout. If the surrounding sentences are in the past tense, the correct option for a verb blank must also be in the past tense, even if another option is a "more common" word.
Example 3: "Yesteryear, farming ___ the major occupation of the villagers before the discovery of oil." Options: (a) was (b) is (c) has been (d) will be
The passage marker "yesteryear" together with "before the discovery of oil" fixes this firmly in the past, so only the simple past "was" is grammatically consistent with the rest of the sentence.