ACLEDA Institute of Business Grammar Form and Function 2A

Department of English Lecturer: KONG Matta

Academic Year: 2017-2018
Answer Key
PRACTICE

True or False: Read each numbered sentence. Write T (true) or F (false) for
the statement that follows.
1. T
2. F
3. T
4. F
5. T
Complete: A police officer is interviewing two witnesses of a traffic
accident. Complete the interview with the correct form of the verbs in
parentheses and with short answers.
1. were you standing
2. occurred
3. were
4. were waiting
5. noticed
6. Was…speeding
7. got
8. was
9. was going
10. reached
11. wasn’t
12. were crossing
13. hit
14. Did…stop
15. saw
16. didn’t
17. was talking
18. was driving
19. didn’t stop
20.weren’t paying
21. were walking
22. was…snowing
23. happened
24. was
25. wasn’t
 26. started
27. arrived
Combine: Read each pair of sentence. Combine them into one sentence
using the simple past tense or the past progressive form of the verbs. Use a
comma where necessary.
1. When the blizzard started, Dana was attending a party.
2. While she was driving home, she listened to her car radio.
3. She pulled over to the side of the road when the visibility got very bad.
4. She heard about the accident while she was listening to the news.
5. She drove to the police station when it stopped snowing.
6. While she was talking to the police, she was thinking about her editorial for the
morning paper.
Edit: Read part of the first draft of Dana’s editorial. Find and correct five
mistakes in the use of time clauses. The first mistake is already corrected.

driving

Yesterday, a man was talking on his cell phone while he was drive his car. Maybe he was

checking his daily planner while he was making his next appointment. He was certainly

not concentrating on the road when the light suddenly was turning turned red. The two

men in the street were trying tried to jump out of the way when they saw him, but it

was too late. No one was badly hurt, but that was just luck. Last year, the City Council

weren’t passing didn’t pass the “talking and driving law.” We need that law!

SelfTest
Circle the letter of the correct answer to complete each sentence.
1 A
2 D
3 D
4 B
5 A
6 B
7 A
 8 B
9 D
10 C
11 C
12 B
Each sentence has hour underline words or phrases. The four underlined
parts of the sentence are marked A, B, C and D. Circle the letter of the one
underlined word or phrase that is NOT CORRECT.
1 C (call)
2 C (was)
3 A (were)
4 D (were sleeping)
5 B (not)
6 D (dropped)
7 A (was)
8 A (did)
9 D (got)
10 C (got)
11 B (was driving)
12 B (delete comma)
13 D (saw)
Past Continuous or Past Simple?
Put in the correct form of the verb.
1 We lost
2 It came
3 was coming
4 went
5 fell
6 were playing
7 I was working
8 I lost
9 I got
 10 did
Underline the correct form.
a. While he took / was taking a bath, Archimedes discovered / was discovering the
principles of density and buoyancy.
b. When Edouard Benedictus, a French scientist, worked / was working in his
laboratory, he dropped / was dropping a glass bottle which had some plastic inside
—and invented / was inventing safety glass.
c. Columbus arrived / was arriving in America while he tried / was trying to reach
the Far East.
d. Alexander Fleming discovered / was discovering penicillin by accident while he
looked / was looking at some old experiments.
e. While Hiram Bingham climbed / was climbing in the mountains of Peru in 1911,
he discovered / was discovering the lost city of Macchu Picchu.
f. While Isaac Newton sat / was sitting under an apple tree, an apple fell / was
falling on his head, and he understood / was understanding gravity.
g. While Dr. Harry Coover tried / was trying to invent a new kind of plastic, he
made / was making a very soft substance which stuck / was sticking things
together. It was superglue.
h. While he observed / was observing the Moon through his telescope, Galileo
realized / was realizing that it had mountains and craters.