Fill in each of the numbered blanks with the correct form of the word given in brackets. Do not copy the passage but write in correct serial order the word or phrase appropriate to the blank space. Example: Next day my uncle (0) __________ (spend) a lot of time. Answer: (0) spent
He (1) __________ (select) clothes for me, and my aunt (2) __________ (give) my face a scrub and (3) __________ (groom) me. My uncle (4) __________ (follow) me about (5) __________ (utter) several pieces of advice before (6) __________ (let) me out. ‘You must never scowl even if the sun (7) __________ (hit) you in the eyes. You must try (8) __________ (look) pleasant.’
Topic: Tenses — correct form of the verb
Answer
(1) selected (2) gave (3) groomed (4) followed (5) uttering (6) letting (7) hits (8) to look
HOW THE 4 MARKS ARE AWARDED: half a mark per blank, eight blanks, no partial credit within a blank.
FIND THE TENSE FIRST. The worked example gives it away: "(0) spent". The narrative is in the SIMPLE PAST, and blanks 1 to 4 follow that.
The last four blanks are NOT simple tense questions, and that is the whole difficulty of this passage: (5) uttering — a present participle describing an action going on at the same time as the following. He followed me about, uttering advice. (6) letting — after the PREPOSITION "before", a verb takes the -ing form (gerund): before letting, before leaving, before going. (7) hits — this is inside DIRECT SPEECH, the uncle’s own words, which are in the present. Inside quotation marks the narrative tense does not apply. (8) to look — "try" is followed by the infinitive: try TO look.
THE LESSON: a fill-in-the-verb passage is not only about tense. Check what the word FOLLOWS — a preposition takes -ing, "try" and "so as not" take the infinitive, and speech marks reset the tense.