Question

Choose the option that completes the sentence correctly-
I wanted to visit you yesterday, but you ______ at home.
a) Was not
b) Are not
c) Have been not
d) Were not

Answer 1

Hint: For such questions you must try to find out the tense of the given sentence, this way it would be easy for you to find out the correct answer.

Complete answer:
We can clearly see that the sentence has the usage of some words which are in the past tense. The words ‘wanted' and ‘yesterday’ are certain words that denote the past tense of the given sentence. We will fill in the blank accordingly.
Now, let us examine all the given options to find out the correct answer :
Option ‘a’ is Was not. This cannot be the correct answer as it cannot be placed in the given blank. We cannot use ‘was’ after ‘you’. So, we will eliminate this option.
Option ‘b’ is Are not. This is also an incorrect option as the sentence is in the past tense and we cannot use ‘are’ in it.
Option ‘c’ is Have been not. This cannot be the correct answer as we cannot use ‘have been not' in the sentence which is in the past tense.
Option ‘d' is Were not. This is the correct answer as we use ‘were’ with ‘you’. Here, ‘were’ is also in the past tense.
As we have analyzed all the given options, we can easily figure out the correct answer. Here, the option to be filled in the blank is – were not. The complete sentence would be – I wanted to visit you yesterday, but you were not at home. Hence, option ‘d’ is the correct answer.

Note:
All the other options are plausible distractions. Don’t confuse between ‘are not' and ‘were not'. It is compulsory to use the verb of past tense as the sentence is in the past tense.