A cloze blank is decided by the passage, not by the sentence it sits in.

Every option in a vocabulary cloze fits the sentence grammatically and most fit it semantically. What eliminates three of them is a sentence somewhere else in the passage, which is why the passage is read whole before any blank is filled.

The evidence was thin. The conclusion was therefore ______ — tentative.

the previous sentence supplies the answer

The evidence was thin. The conclusion was therefore ______ — emphatic.

fits the sentence, contradicts the passage

Where it bites

Blanks in the first sentence. The signal for those is usually later, so they are answered last, not first.