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How Good Are Cloze Deletion Tests for Learning Chinese?
A cloze test is a sentence or passage with words taken out. You fill each gap using the words around it. It's one of the oldest exercises in language teaching, and it turns out to suit Chinese particularly well.
Cloze tests are very good for learning Chinese vocabulary and grammar in context, and for building the reading skill of working out a word from its surroundings. They don't train speaking, listening or pronunciation on their own, so use them as one part of your routine rather than the whole of it.
Here's a simple example:
桌子上有三＿＿猫。
zhuōzi shang yǒu sān ＿＿ māo.
There are three cats on the table.
The answer is 只 (zhī), the measure word for animals. To fill the gap you have to recall the word yourself, and you practise it in exactly the place it's used: between a number and a noun.
Key Takeaways
- Cloze tests make you recall words in context, which helps both memory and usage
- They're especially useful for measure words, particles and grammar patterns
- They work best combined with spaced repetition and with listening and speaking practice
Understanding Cloze Deletion Tests
Cloze tests started as a way to measure how readable a text is, and have since become a standard tool for both testing and learning languages.
Origins and Theory
The cloze procedure was introduced by Wilson L. Taylor in 1953 as a way to measure how readable a text was: if readers could restore the missing words easily, the text was easy to read.
The name comes from “closure”, the idea in Gestalt psychology that people naturally complete incomplete patterns. When you see a gap in a sentence, you automatically use what you know to fill it.
Types and Methodologies
Fixed-ratio deletion: every nth word (often every 5th to 7th) is removed from a passage. This is the classic test format. In Chinese it's less straightforward, because text is written without spaces: you first have to decide where each word begins and ends, or else delete single characters, which can cut a word like 电脑 (diànnǎo, computer) in half.
Rational deletion: specific types of words are removed on purpose:
- Key vocabulary
- Grammar words such as 了 (le), 得 (de) or 把 (bǎ)
- Measure words and fixed phrases
Single-sentence cloze (i+1): you study one sentence at a time. Each sentence contains just one word you don't know yet, and that word is the blank. This applies the idea of comprehensible input: everything around the gap is familiar, so you can work out the new word.
Multiple choice: instead of an open gap, you choose from a few options. This is easier and quicker, and especially helpful early on.
Typed answers: you type the missing word from memory, which is harder but a stronger test of recall.
Cloze Procedure vs. Other Methods
A traditional flashcard shows a word on its own. A cloze shows it in a sentence, so you learn how it's used as well as what it means.
A cloze also makes you produce or choose the answer, rather than just reading or listening. That effort is what makes it effective.
You can aim it at whatever you need: grammar, vocabulary or reading comprehension. And apps can now generate the gaps automatically and schedule your reviews, which is much quicker than making worksheets.
Effectiveness in Language Acquisition
There's little research on cloze practice for Chinese specifically, but the principles behind it are well supported.
Memory and Recall
Memory research has shown many times that testing yourself, known as retrieval practice or the “testing effect”, helps you remember more than rereading the same material. A cloze is a retrieval exercise: you have to pull the word out of memory to fill the gap. Combine it with spaced repetition, which times each review for just before you'd forget, and you have two of the most reliable memory techniques in one exercise.
What a cloze doesn't do is train your mouth. Filling a gap on a screen is reading and recall, not speaking, so you still need listening and speaking practice alongside it.
Vocabulary and Grammatical Knowledge
Because you learn words inside sentences, you pick up grammar and usage at the same time. This is particularly useful for parts of Chinese that make little sense in isolation:
- Negation: 我＿＿去过北京。(wǒ ＿＿ qùguo běijīng. I've never been to Beijing.) The answer is 没 (méi), not 不 (bù), because of 过 (guo).
- Particles: 他跑＿＿很快。(tā pǎo ＿＿ hěn kuài. He runs fast.) The answer is 得 (de), the particle that links a verb to a description of how it's done.
- Collocations: 请把门＿＿上。(qǐng bǎ mén ＿＿ shang. Please close the door.) The answer is 关 (guān), and the sentence shows the 把 pattern at work.
Seeing words in context also helps you tell apart near-synonyms that are easy to confuse when you only know their English translations.
Comparison with Flashcards and Spaced Repetition
Cloze deletions work well alongside spaced repetition. A basic flashcard tests whether you know what a word means; a cloze also tests whether you know where it goes.
Advantages over word-only flashcards:
- Words are remembered with their context
- You absorb natural sentence patterns
- You notice grammar without studying rules separately
The trade-off is speed: a sentence takes longer to read than a single word, so you get through fewer cards in the same time. You can also aim cloze practice at your weak spots, such as measure words or two-character compounds.
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Evaluating the Validity of Cloze Tests
Cloze tests have been studied for decades as an assessment tool, mostly for English as a foreign language. The findings are useful for learners too, because they show what a cloze really practises.
What Research Says Cloze Tests Measure
In an influential study, J. Charles Alderson (1979) made cloze tests from the same texts with different deletion rates (every 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th word) and found that the choice of deletion rate, text and scoring method changed how the tests behaved. He concluded that cloze tests mostly measure grammar and vocabulary within a sentence, rather than higher-level reading skills like following an argument across a passage.
For learners, that's a fair description of what cloze practice is good for: building the vocabulary and grammar you need at sentence level. Pair it with longer reading to practise following whole texts.
Scoring and Synonyms
Cloze tests can be scored in two ways. Exact-word scoring only accepts the word that was removed. Acceptable-word scoring accepts any word that fits, which is fairer but harder to mark.
The problem is clear in a sentence like 这个菜＿＿好吃 (zhège cài ＿＿ hǎochī, this dish is ＿＿ tasty). 很 (hěn), 真 (zhēn), 非常 (fēicháng) and 特别 (tèbié) all fit. A good cloze exercise avoids gaps like this, or uses multiple choice with only one possible answer.
Cultural knowledge plays a part too. A passage about a familiar topic is easier to complete than one about something you know nothing about, whatever its linguistic difficulty.
Practical Applications and Assessments
Cloze tests are good at showing whether you really understand a text or are just recognising characters, which is why they turn up in exams as well as in study apps.
Cloze Questions in the HSK
In the HSK exams in use at the time of writing, the reading paper at HSK 3 and HSK 4 includes a section called 选词填空 (xuǎn cí tián kòng, choose a word to fill the blank), where you pick the right word from a list for each sentence. HSK 5 and 6 go further, with whole passages containing gaps to fill. If you're preparing for the exam, regular cloze practice is direct preparation. Our post on whether you should take the HSK covers the exam in more detail.
Usage in Academic and Professional Contexts
Teachers use cloze exercises to check whether students are ready for harder material and for quick placement tests, because filling gaps shows how well you use context and grammar.
That same skill, using the surrounding text to work out a word, is what you rely on when reading Chinese news or anything else written for native speakers.
Using Cloze Tests for Self-Study
You have a few options for practising on your own. Anki has a built-in cloze note type, so you can turn any sentence into a fill-in-the-blank card. Clozemaster is built entirely around cloze sentences; we compare the two in Clozemaster vs Anki. Or you can use an app that picks the sentences and the gaps for you.
How Cloze Tests Work in Mandarin Mosaic
Cloze is the default lesson type in Mandarin Mosaic, called Fill in the Blanks. Each sentence is chosen to contain one new word where possible, so most of what surrounds the gap is familiar. Here's how it works:
- Multiple choice by default: you read the sentence, tap any other word for its pinyin, meaning and audio if you need to, then choose the missing word from the four options under the sentence and tap Check.
- Typing is optional: turn on Type word answer in Settings to type the missing word in Chinese characters instead, for a harder test.
- How the blank is chosen: the app prefers the new word the sentence was picked to teach, or a word that's due for review. It also uses a “word clozability” score, based on how often learners who know a word get it right when it's blanked, so it avoids gaps like the 这个菜＿＿好吃 example above.
- Your own clozes: when you add your own sentences to a custom pack, you can choose which word is blanked with Set Cloze.
Our guide to how cloze tests work in Mandarin Mosaic covers the settings and scoring in full.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you notice a significant improvement in language retention using cloze deletion over basic flashcards?
It depends on the flashcards. A basic card that makes you recall a word is already retrieval practice, and that works. The main advantage of a cloze is the context: you remember how the word is used, not just what it means, and you see its grammar and collocations every time you review it.
What are the main differences between basic flashcards and cloze deletion cards?
Basic flashcards show a word on its own, while cloze cards show it in a sentence. That helps you learn natural usage and collocations.
In tools like Anki, one sentence can also hold several clozes, so you can test different words from the same sentence on separate cards.
Do cloze cards actually make a difference in mastering Mandarin compared to traditional study methods?
They make a real difference to vocabulary and reading, because you practise recalling words in the sentences where you'll meet them. Combined with spaced repetition, which brings each word back just before you're likely to forget it, they're an efficient way to build vocabulary. They won't replace listening and speaking practice, so keep those in your routine too.