Question

3) Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word:
The girl ______ in the yard asked me the time.
A) Play
B) To play
C) Played
D) Playing
E) Was playing

Answer 1

Hint: Verbs are action or doing words or a verb is a part of a sentence that tells what the subject performs. For example, run, walk, eat, play etc. Verbs have three forms: First form of the verb, Second form of the verb and Third form of the verb. For example: write, wrote and written.
The gerund is the “ing” form of a verb that functions the same as the noun. For example “Running is fun” so running is gerund it acts just like a noun.


Complete answer: Gerunds are words that are formed with verbs but act as nouns. Gerunds always end in “ing”. In this particular sentence, the word in the blank acts as a noun and a verb at the same time (becoming the subject of the sentence and also like a verb by taking up the object). This means that in the blank, we would need a gerund.
Option A) Play is the incorrect answer because it is in the present tense. Play does not behave like a noun and a verb at the same time.
Option B) To play is the incorrect answer because it is in the present tense. To play does not behave like a noun and a verb at the same time. Thus, for completing this sentence we need gerund.
Option C) Played is the incorrect answer because it is the past tense and we need gerund and as we know that gerunds are always ending with “ing” so players cannot be the correct answer.
Option D) Playing is an incorrect answer, though as per the rule that gerund will always end with “ing” but every word made up of a verb plus ing is a gerund so in this case playing is continuous past tense and does not consider as a gerund. Thus, does not completely go with the sentence.
Option E) Was playing is the correct answer because it is a gerund.

 Note: In such type of question it is important to understand the difference between the verbs with ing are gerund or not. For example, Playing is not a gerund or playing football is also not a gerund. So, we should have complete knowledge about the proper usage of the gerund in the sentence.