Verb

Directions: For each of the following, select the option that completes the text so that it conforms
to the conventions of Standard English ?

1. According to Box, a leading Greenland expert, tundra fires in 2012 from as far away as North
America produced great amounts of soot, some of it drifted over Greenland in giant plumes of
smoke and then _____ as particles onto the ice sheet.

A) fell
B) falls
C) will fall
D) had fallen

2. Philosophy ________ students not what to think but how to think; the age-old discipline offers
consistently useful tools for academic and professional achievement.

A) teaching
B) teaches
C) to teach
D) and teaching

3. Some of the earliest known works of art, including paintings and drawings tens of thousands
of years old found on cave walls in Spain and France, __________ animals.

A) portrays
B) portraying
C) portray
D) has portrayed

4. For centuries, cats have guarded the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, ridding it of
mice, rats, and other rodents that could damage the art, not to mention _________ off visitors.

A) scared
B) scaring
C) scare
D) have scared

5. Schindler and Brunskill hypothesized that phosphates were responsible for the growth of
cyanobacteria. The experiment confirmed their suspicions when half of the lake containing the
phosphates _________ with blue-green algae.
A) was teeming
B) were teeming
C) are teeming
D) teems

6. All these inventions ________ new industries, and with those industries, jobs.

A) spawns
B) spawned
C) has spawned
D) spawning

7. A report by the Space Foundation estimated that NASA contributed $180 billion to the
economy in 2005. More than 60 percent of the contribution ______ from commercial goods and
services created by companies using space-related technology.

A) coming
B) which came
C) to come
D) came

8. The most common forms of professional development provided to employees ____________

coaching, mentoring, technical assistance, and workshops.

A) includes
B) include
C) including
D) has included

9. From its beginning, the movement __________ the standardization of taste that fast food
chains promote. For example, a McDonald’s hamburger made in Boston tastes more or less the
same as one made in Beijing.

A) had opposed
B) opposes
C) will oppose
D) has opposed

10. As a result, organic material that is sent to landfills _________ to the release of methane, a
very potent greenhouse gas.
A) contribute
B) are contributing
C) contributes
D) have contributed

11. Also, studies have found that those students who major in philosophy often do better than
students from other majors in both verbal reasoning and analytical writing. On the Graduate
Record Examination (GRE), for example, students intending to study philosophy in graduate
school ________ higher than students in all but four other majors.

A) has scored
B) have scored
C) scores
D) scoring

12. Disruptions of circadian rhythms have been linked to sleep disorders, diabetes, depression,
and bipolar disorder. Like any other health problems, these ailments can increase employee
absenteeism, which, in turn, ____ costly for employers.

A) is
B) are
C) is being
D) have been

13. Deformation results in subtle variations in density that both ________________ the size of
the droplets that can be tested.

A) causes uneven heat flow and limits

B) cause uneven heat flow and limit
C) cause uneven heat flow and limits
D) has caused uneven heat flow and has limited

14. The flights allowed the UCSD students to experience microgravity. Specifically, they
__________ the combustion of biofuel droplets in microgravity for twice as long as could be
accomplished in drop towers and to perform tests with larger droplets.

A) investigated
B) could investigate
C) were investigating
D) were able to investigate

15. Some college towns and resort communities embrace the fare-free public transportation
model because buses can go faster when drivers ________________ to collect fares.
A) would not have had
B) do not have
C) did not have
D) will not have

16. Marsupials (mammals that carry their young in a pouch) are a curiosity among biologists
because they lack a corpus callosum, the collection of nerve fibers connecting the two
hemispheres of the brain. Scientists _____________ that this structure enables complex tasks
by sequestering skilled movement to a single hemisphere without sacrificing coordination
between both sides of the body; this sequestration would explain handedness, the tendency to
consistently prefer one hand over the other, in humans.

A) are long believing

B) will long be believing
C) have long believed
D) long believe