Question

Fill in the blank with the correct form of infinitive verb to complete the sentence:
We had better ____ early.
A) Reached
B) Reaches
C) Reach
D) To reach

Answer 1

Hint:Infinity verb is a verb with the word “TO” in front of it. The infinitive form of the verb is usually preceded by “to”. For example: to be, to have, to hold, to sleep, to dream and etc.

Complete Answer:Most infinitives are preceded by “to”, but after certain verbs “to” is sometimes dropped. For example: can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would (they are also considered as the modal verbs). Thus, this is called bare infinitives when not preceded by “to”.

>Option A) Reached is an incorrect answer because reached is the past form of the verb reach.
>Option B) Reaches is an incorrect answer because reaches is the third person of the verb reach. Hence, option B is incorrect.
>Option C) Reach is the correct answer as it is a verb and in its original form and is a bare infinitive. We had better reach early.
>Option D) To reach is an incorrect answer because to reach cannot be used here as the verb in its original form. As the sentence is in the active voice, we cannot use infinitive with TO here. Thus, this is an incorrect option.

Hence option ‘C’ is the correct answer.

Note: In order to fill in the blank with the most suitable form of the infinitive, we need to understand the usage of 'had better'. 'Had better' is similar to 'would rather', which means preferring something or someone over the other. If 'had better' is used in a passive voice sentence, we use the word 'to' along with the verb. In an active sentence, we do not use 'to' with the verb. The verbs without the marker 'to', are called bare infinitives. As the given sentence is in the active voice, we will use the bare infinitive here.