GATE CE 2026 Set 2 — Question 1

The sentence describes a situation where the team achieved a good score (more than 300 runs) but still had players who needed improvement. The word 'scored' fits the past tense action of achieving runs. The conjunction 'despite' or 'in spite of' is needed to introduce a contrasting idea (the rain) that did not prevent the team from scoring well, or to introduce the contrasting idea of players needing improvement despite the good score.Let's analyze the options:
(A) "score; despite": "score" is a noun here, not a verb. "The team score" is grammatically incorrect in this context.
(B) "scoring; instead of": "scoring" is a gerund, which could work, but "instead of rains" implies that scoring happened instead of rain, which doesn't make sense in the context of the second part of the sentence.
(C) "scored; despite": "scored" is the correct past tense verb. "despite rains" correctly introduces the contrasting element of rain. The overall sentence structure and meaning are coherent: 'The team scored more than 300 runs in 20 overs despite rains. However, some players needed to improve their batting skills.' This makes perfect sense.
(D) "scoring; in spite of": Similar to (B), "scoring" is a gerund. While "in spite of rains" is grammatically correct, "scored" is a more direct and appropriate verb for the first blank.Therefore, option (C) provides the most grammatically correct and contextually appropriate words.