Directions: In the following passage, some of the words have been left out, each of which is indicated by a letter. Find the suitable word from the options given against each letter and fill up the blanks with appropriate words to make the paragraph meaningful.
Grooming the next Ronaldo or Lionel Messi has become a national project in China, where the country’s No. 1 fan, President Xi Jinping, is ____ A ____ on transforming the country into a great football power.
It is a ____ B ____ for China, whose teams have ranked poor to middling in recent international competition. But the effort has already ____ C ____ a surge of spending and support for the game that has stunned fans and players around the world.
In the past two weeks, the main Chinese league has ____ D ____ foreign stars from Europe and South America with contracts reported to be worth as much as $40 million a year, the highest pay for any footbal player in the world. A Chinese club offered the real Ronaldo $105 million a year, but he declined, his agent said last week. These ____ E ____ sums are shaking the landscape of football. Antonio Conte, the manager of England’s fabled Chelsea team, ____ F ___ the Chinese spending spree last month as a “danger for all teams in the world”.
The drive to match China’s economic ascent with success on the football field has become ____ G ____ of Mr. Xi’s ambition to transform China into a great and confident power. “My biggest hope for Chinese soccer is that its teams become among the world’s best,” he announced last year.
Explanation:
Usage of either “white elephant” which means ‘a possession that is useless or troublesome’ or “tall talk” which means ‘the act or an instance of exaggerating’ would be absurd in the context and hence both the options D and E can be eliminated.
Now both “wild goose chase” (a foolish and hopeless search for or pursuit of something unattainable.) and “fool’s errand” (a task or activity that has no hope of success.) are more or less synonymous to each other and therefore neither of them could be used for the blank.
The only choice left here is “moonshot”. The word refers to ‘a launch of a spacecraft to the moon’ and here in the context of the paragraph it is used as an idiomatic expression to signify China’s vision to become great as a Football team.
Option B is hence the correct answer