Question

Fill in the blank with the correct form of the past tense of the verb given in the brackets.
We ______ (surprise) at the news of her defeat.
A) Surprised
B) Surprising
C) Were surprised
D) Had been surprised

Answer 1

Hint:Past tense verb used to refer to the activity or indicate an action, event or condition that have happened in the past. They are the regular verbs that simply end with -ed or -d. For example: He worked at the cheesecake factory.

Complete answer:
Option A) Surprised – is an incorrect answer because ‘surprised’ is in the past form but still does not fit well in the blank. So, the use surprised in the blank is grammatically incorrect.
Option B) Surprising – s an incorrect answer because ‘surprising’ is a present participle and we need our answer to be in the past tense. Thus, the use of surprising is grammatically incorrect.
Option C) Were surprised – is the correct answer because ‘were surprised’ is in the simple past tense and it also indicates that an action was completed in the past. So, the use of ‘were surprised’ is grammatically correct in the blank and this is the correct answer.
Option D) Had been surprised – is an incorrect answer because ‘had been surprised’ is past perfect continuous tense and it is formed using the had been + the verbs present participle (root + ing). Thus, this is an incorrect answer.

The right answer to this is option (C).

Note:The given sentence is in passive voice and passive voice means that the subject is a recipient of a verbs action. A verb is used to express an occurrence, action, or state. Option C - were surprised is the correct answer because the sentence is also in the simple past tense and it is used to indicate an action that was completed in the past. The other options are wrong as no other tense can be used here.