MaggieMae wrote:Now I'm freezing up every time I have to read something that even looks like a test problem, especially fill in the blank texts.
I can't really say what your individual difficulties are, but I'll tell you the most common mistake with fill-in-the-blanks...
When we approach one of these in our first language or a strong second language, the first thing we know is the word class. Like "that's an adjective" or whatever. If it's a verb, we've probably worked out the tense and person from context before we even start to think about the meaning.
But if we're nervous and/or uncertain, we start to focus on the meaning, and stop paying attention to word class/part of speech. I'm told it's far more common for people to put in something of the correct word class and rub it out in favour of something of the wrong word class than vice versa.
My advice to my own students is therefore to take a second and be conscious of the word class before proceeding to think about the specific word.