Question

Fill in the blank using the appropriate form of the given verb:
Phone me after 8 o’clock. _______ (we/finish} dinner by then.
a- We’ll be finishing
b- We’ll have been finishing
c- We had finished
d- We’ll have finished

Answer 1

Hint: We use the future perfect tense to indicate an action that will be completed sometime in the future. Future perfect tenses should include a time period.

Complete answer: Let’s look at the structure and usage of future perfect tense-
Structure: Subject + will + have + third form of the verb/past participle
Usage: I will have written this book by 9 o’clock. Here, we can understand that X will have written the book by a specific time expression.
In the given question: We can conclude that X and Y would have finished dinner by 8 o’clock. Hence, the correct answer is; we will have finished.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option a- ‘We’ll be finishing’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use continuous tense to indicate an action that will take place between a specific time period.
Option b- ‘We’ll have been finishing’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use perfect continuous tense to indicate an action that will take place at a specific time in the future.
Option c- ‘We had finished’ is an incorrect option because the past tense indicates an action that has already taken place in the past.
Option d- ‘We’ll have finished’ is the correct option because it indicates that the action will be completed sometime in the future. The correct answer is Option ‘d’.

Note: Keep in mind, we only use ‘have’ with future perfect tense, irrespective of the singular or plural nouns. Also, future perfect tense usually functions with a time expression.