It (1) __________ (glide) slowly over the ruts in the road ahead of me. It was seven or eight feet long and (2) __________ (hold) its flat spoon-shaped head six inches up in the air. I (3) __________ (stop) the car smartly so as not (4) __________ (run) over it. To be truthful, I was so (5) __________ (frighten). I (6) __________ (go) quickly into reverse and (7) __________ (keep) backing away. The fearsome thing (8) __________ (disappear) into the undergrowth.

(1) was gliding (2) was holding (3) stopped (4) to run (5) frightened (6) went (7) kept (8) disappeared

HOW THE 4 MARKS ARE AWARDED: half a mark per blank, eight blanks, no partial credit within a blank.

FIND THE TENSE FIRST. "It WAS seven or eight feet long" fixes the passage in the past, and every blank must agree unless the grammar forces otherwise.

Blank by blank: (1) was gliding — PAST CONTINUOUS. The snake was in the middle of the action when the narrator saw it, and "slowly" reinforces the continuing movement. "Glided" is acceptable but less exact. (2) was holding — joined to the continuous description; the head was held up throughout. (3) stopped — SIMPLE PAST: a single completed action. (4) to run — NOT a tense at all. "So as not TO RUN over it" is a fixed infinitive construction, and the bracket word must simply take the infinitive. This is the trap of the passage: candidates in tense-mode write "running" or "ran". (5) frightened — PAST PARTICIPLE used as an adjective after "was so". Note the distinction: FRIGHTENED describes the person who feels it, FRIGHTENING describes the thing that causes it. The narrator was frightened; the snake was frightening. (6) went — simple past, irregular. (7) kept — simple past, irregular, parallel to "went". (8) disappeared — simple past.

MARKS LOST MECHANICALLY: copying the passage instead of writing the answers in serial order (the instruction forbids it), and misspelling the verb form.