Grade 6 English Comprehension and Cloze Test Tips That Work

Last reviewed: 25 October 2026

Comprehension and cloze passages make up a large part of any upper primary English paper, and they reward method more than talent. A learner who reads with a clear plan will score steadily, even on an unfamiliar story. This guide sets out that plan, with tips parents can practise at home using any short text.

On this page

1. Reading a Comprehension Passage
2. Types of Comprehension Questions
3. Finding Evidence
4. What a Cloze Test Is
5. Cloze Strategies
6. A Worked Cloze Example
7. Building Vocabulary
8. Managing Time
9. Practise With Real Questions

Reading a Comprehension Passage

Start with a quick read of the whole passage to understand what it is about: who, where, what happened and how it ended. Then read the questions. Now go back and read the passage carefully, knowing what to look for. This two-pass approach is faster than reading slowly once and then searching blindly.

Types of Comprehension Questions

• Fact questions: the answer is stated directly. Find the sentence and match it. These are the easiest marks.
• Inference questions: the answer is suggested, not stated. “How did Amani feel when the bus left?” If the passage says he stamped his feet and refused to talk, the answer is angry or upset.
• Vocabulary questions: “What does the word ‘reluctant’ mean as used in the passage?” Read the sentence before and after; the context usually explains it.
• Main idea or best title: choose the option that covers the whole passage, not just one paragraph.

Finding Evidence

Teach your child to point at the line that proves an answer. If they cannot point to it, the answer may be a guess. In multiple-choice questions, wrong options often use words from the passage but change the meaning, for example swapping “before” for “after” or “some” for “all”. Checking against the exact sentence catches these traps.

What a Cloze Test Is

A cloze test is a passage with blanks, and the learner picks the word that fits each one. It tests grammar, vocabulary and understanding of the whole text at once.

Cloze Strategies

1. Read the whole passage first, skipping the blanks, to get the meaning.
2. Look at the words around each blank. A blank after “an” needs a word starting with a vowel sound. A blank after “has” may need a past participle such as “eaten” or “gone”.
3. Check the tense. If the passage is in the past (“Yesterday we walked…”), the missing verb is almost certainly past tense too.
4. Check agreement. “The children ___ playing” needs “were”, not “was”.
5. Watch linking words. “but”, “although” and “however” signal a contrast; “because” and “so” signal a reason or result.
6. Reread the sentence with your choice to hear whether it sounds right.

A Worked Cloze Example

“Last Saturday, my sister and I ___ (1) to the market. We wanted to buy ___ (2) orange and some tomatoes, ___ (3) the prices were too high.” Blank 1 needs a past tense verb: “went”. Blank 2 comes before “orange”, which starts with a vowel sound, so “an”. Blank 3 introduces a contrast with what they wanted, so “but”.

Building Vocabulary

Reading every day is the single best preparation. Storybooks, class readers and even newspaper articles all help. Keep a small notebook of new words with their meanings and one sentence using each. Ten new words a week adds up to hundreds by the end of the year.

Managing Time

Do not get stuck. If a question is hard, mark it, move on and come back. In multiple-choice papers, never leave a blank; eliminate options that are clearly wrong and choose the best of the rest.

Practise With Real Questions

The Grade 6 English revision papers include comprehension and cloze practice, and the first questions are free. Daily mixed questions are on the exam countdown, and the What to Revise report shows which skills to focus on. Visit the Grade 6 hub for other subjects. The full set of papers with answers is in the Monthly Pass (KSh 500 by M-Pesa), and every question is checked by a teacher.