Question

Fill a suitable option to complete the sentence:
'Is there a school in the village?'
'Not now, there _______ one but it has closed now.'

a)had to be
b)has to be
c)used to be
d)have to be

Answer 1

Hint: In the given question, the sentence indicates that there is presently no school, however, there was one in the past. Therefore, the phrase that is to be used to fill in the blank should be in the past tense.

Complete step by step solution:

 A small group of words standing together as a conceptual unit is called a phrase, it is an expression consisting of one or more words forming a grammatical constituent of a sentence. For example- formulate his concerns.
The time expression of past tense appears either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence/phrase – never in the middle of the sentence/phrase.
Let us analyze the options given to us in this question:
Option (a.), 'had to be', includes ‘had’ which has a meaning of compulsion and assertion. However, the speaker in the sentence is not conveying that there was a school there compulsorily, but conveying it as a fact instead. Therefore, this is incorrect.
Option (b.), ‘has to be', refers to a present occurring that is compulsory. Since the phrase has to be in the past tense, this option is incorrect.
Option (c.), ‘used to be', does not have a meaning of compulsion and is also in the simple past tense. Therefore, this is the correct option.
Option (d.), ‘have to be', refers to a present occurring that is compulsory. Since the phrase has to be in the past tense, this option is incorrect.

Note: In this question, do not get confused between option (a.) and option (c.) as the right answer, because ‘had to be’ refers to an assertion that the school was there, however, the speaker is stating that the school was there in the past as a fact.
To tackle such questions, focus on the tense of the phrase given in the options and then focus on what the tense of the sentence should be- is it referring to something in the past, present, or future?