Question

Complete the sentence using the correct form of the verb:
A: ‘Shall I buy this book for Tim?’
B: ‘You’d better not. He might already ________ it.’
a. had read
b. have read
c. has read
d. is reading

Answer 1

Hint: The given sentence question states a question as sentence A asks sentence B for advice on buying a book. Sentence B suggests not to. Sentence B thinks he might have already finished reading it. It states an action that might have taken place already.

Complete step-by-step answer:

‘Have read’ is in the present perfect tense. It states an action that has just completed, where ‘might’ states the possibility of having completed the action. ‘Might’ is a modal and will be followed by an infinitive.
Modal auxiliaries are followed by the infinitive, that is the base form. ‘Have’ is an infinitive, and here it's also an auxiliary (helping) verb. ‘Had’ is not an infinitive.
Hence option [b] is the correct option and option [a] is the wrong one. In ‘has read’, ‘has’ is not an infinitive, or the base verb (‘have’ in ‘to have’ is an infinitive).
‘Is reading’ is in a present continuous tense and states a continuous action at the moment. But the action happened in the past, ‘might’ is the past tense of ‘may’.
Also, ‘might’ will be followed by an infinitive; ‘is’ is not an infinitive (‘is’, is the present form of 'be': might be reading) Hence, options [c] and [d] are also wrong.

Note: Modal verbs always accompany the base form of another verb. Go through all the options carefully before choosing the correct verb in the sentence. Such verb questions should be framed properly in the sentence once, before submitting the final answer.