PTE Reading & Writing Fill-Ups Drop Down Menu Section Answer Explanation

Solve the following Drop-Down Fill In The Blanks –

Umami was first identified in Japan, in 1908, when Dr. Kikunae Ikeda concluded that Kombu, a type of edible seaweed, had a different taste than most foods. He concluded ________ that found that the high concentration of glutamate in Kombu was what made it so tasty. From there, he crystallized monosodium glutamate (MSG), the seasoning that would become ________ the world over. Decades later Umami became scientifically defined as one of the five individual tastes sensed by receptors on the ________. Then in 1996, a team of University of Miami researchers studying taste perception made another breakthrough. They discovered separate taste receptor cells in the tongue for detecting Umami. Before then, the concept was uncharted. “Up until our research, the ________ wisdom in the scientific community was that Umami was not a separate sense. It was just a combination of the other four qualities (salty, sweet, bitter, sour)”, explained Dr. Stephen Roper, the University of Miami physiology and biophysics professor who helped zero in on the taste along with Nirupa Chaudhari, the team’s lead researcher.

Let’s look out for the options –

Blank 1 – a) experiences b) contests c) experiments d) attempts
Blank 2 – a) spread b) exported c) exclusive d) popular
Blank 3 – a) fingers b) mouth c) tongue d) jaws
Blank 4 – a) predominate b) insignificant c) important d) erroneous

Answers with Explanation –

Blank 1 – He conducted “experiences” – No, “contests” – No, “experiments” – Yes, “attempts” – No. He conducted attempts there is no such thing like conducting attempts, then there is no such thing conducting experiences or conducting contests. So technically, he conducted experiments. While conducting those experiments he found out that the Kombu was so tasty.

Blank 2 – “spread” the world over (if they have written ‘that would’ you can write spread, but they said “that would become”, so we can’t use the verb after they have already used a verb. So that would become “exported”, that would become “exclusive”, that would become “popular” the world over. So it must be “popular.”

Blank 3 – It’s very easy – “tongue”.

Blank 4 – (predominate, insignificant, important, erroneous) You should know the meaning of these options to chose the correct word. Unfortunately, if you don’t know the meaning, you can’t just choose the correct word.

The word “insignificant” is a different word, so we can’t use it in blank four. “The Insignificant wisdom” is wrong. “The important wisdom”, again this doesn’t sound right. The correct word must be “predominate”. Predominate means the major facts which dominate the scientific community. So there was the predominate wisdom in the scientific community. If you know the meaning of erroneous, you must know that this word can’t be fit in the fourth blank.

So it’s all about vocabulary here. In this, we can’t use grammar to find out the correct word. So again spend some time to underline the difficult meanings and the different words in this paragraph and try to google it.

Note – So this is the important thing we are repeating again and again. You need to google and check the dictionary for different words. Don’t just fill the blanks and just move on to the next one without checking the meaning. Here you need to check the meaning of erroneous, insignificant, predominate and then why we are choosing these words here.