Difficulty: Medium
Correct Answer: abuse
Explanation:
Introduction / Context:
This cloze question completes the passage about mental health, focusing on serious conditions linked to alcohol and drugs. The sentence mentions psychoses and conditions arising from alcohol and substance ________. You must select the noun that fits best both in meaning and in common medical or social usage when discussing mental health issues related to alcohol and drugs.
Given Data / Assumptions:
Concept / Approach:
The widely used phrase in public health and psychiatry is alcohol and substance abuse, which refers to harmful or excessive use of these substances. Eating, sale, and withdrawal all have different meanings and do not match the standard expression for this context. The passage clearly refers to health conditions caused by harmful use, so abuse is the correct choice.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Identify that the sentence is listing causes of mental health problems: anxiety, depression, psychoses, and substance-related conditions.
Step 2: Recall the common term alcohol and substance abuse used in health discussions.
Step 3: Substitute option a, abuse, into the sentence: psychoses and conditions arising from alcohol and substance abuse.
Step 4: Test option b, eating: alcohol and substance eating has no meaningful interpretation.
Step 5: Test option c, sale: conditions arising from alcohol and substance sale refers to economic activity, not health effects.
Step 6: Test option d, withdrawal: while withdrawal is a medical term related to stopping use, the usual combination is withdrawal from alcohol and substances, not arising from alcohol and substance withdrawal in this broad listing.
Step 7: Conclude that abuse is the only option that fits both grammatically and conceptually.
Verification / Alternative check:
Consider how mental health organisations phrase similar issues: mental health problems related to alcohol and substance abuse, treatment for alcohol and substance abuse, and prevention of alcohol and substance abuse. These examples confirm that abuse is the standard term. The other nouns either misrepresent the meaning or break the collocation entirely.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Eating is wrong because it describes consumption of food, not drugs or alcohol in the context of harmful use. Sale is wrong because it concerns commercial transaction, not the act of using substances in a harmful way. Withdrawal is wrong because it refers specifically to the symptoms experienced when a user stops taking a substance; while related, it is not the general term used in a broad list of causes like anxiety disorders, depression, and psychoses.
Common Pitfalls:
Some candidates might be tempted by withdrawal because it appears in discussions of substances, but they fail to see that the passage is listing broad categories of problems tied to ongoing harmful use, not the specific process of stopping. When reading cloze passages, you must think about common phrases used in the relevant domain. In mental health, alcohol and substance abuse is a very familiar expression, making the answer straightforward.
Final Answer:
The correct word for the blank is abuse, giving: psychoses and conditions arising from alcohol and substance abuse.
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