Question

Fill in the blank with the correct word/phrase.
As soon as I arrived, we _____ our food – everyone had waited for me.
A. were ordering
B. ordered
C. had ordered
D. would order

Answer 1

Hint: We use the simple past tense form of a verb to indicate actions that began and ended in the past itself. Also, we can see the use of ‘arrived’ in the sentence which indicates that the action took place in the past.

Complete answer:
Let us look at the structure and usage of simple past tense-
Structure- Subject + base form of the verb + ed/d + object
Usage: We took the metro last night. Here, ‘took’ is the past tense form of the verb ‘take’. It indicates that X and Y took the metro in the past.
In the given question: We can conclude that as soon as X arrived, they ordered their food. The use of ‘ordered’ and ‘arrived’ indicates that the action took place in the past.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option A. ‘were ordering’ is an incorrect option because it is given in the past continuous tense form.
Option B. ‘ordered’ is the correct option because it is given in the simple past tense form.
Option C. ‘had ordered’ is an incorrect option because it is given in the past perfect tense form.
Option D. ‘would order’ is an incorrect option because it is given in the future tense form.
The correct answer is Option ‘b’.

Note:
Keep in mind, irregular verbs have distinct past tense forms while regular verbs end with ‘ed’ or ‘d’. For example- took, sang, ate, etc are irregular verbs, whereas danced, jumped, ordered, etc are regular verbs.