Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option:
_______ the weather good when you _____ tennis?
a) is/played
b) was/were playing
c) Will be/played
d) is/will be playing
e) Has been/will play

Answer 1

Hint: Both the parts of the option need not be in the same tense. Read the question to understand the situation of the sentence. Someone is asking about the weather while he was playing tense. So we need a past tense and a past continuous tense since the question is about something in the past.

Complete answer:
Option a is wrong because it is using a present and a past tense together which is contradictory. Asking about the current weather while someone was playing tennis in the past is definitely wrong.
Option b is the right answer because it makes use of the past tense and the subsequent past continuous tense. “Was the weather good when you were playing tennis?” is the correct sentence. It means that when the person was playing tennis (in the process of playing and thus a continuous tense has been used), was the weather good at that time (in the past).
Option c is wrong because “Will be the weather good…” is grammatically wrong in itself. Similar to option a, two different time periods have been put together in one sentence. “Will” is in the future tense and it is followed by “played” which is past tense.
Option d has used a present tense and a future tense together which makes the option wrong.
Option e is incorrect because of the usage of a present and future tense together.

Note:
 The time period of the sentence should remain consistent. The form of tense may change, that is present and present perfect or past and past continuous tense may be used in one sentence but the time period should not change. A present and past tense cannot be used in one sentence unless two different actions are being talked about.