Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word:
Mike and Jack __________ here five months ago. They _______ in this city for five months.
a) Came / have been
b) Have come / have been
c) Come / were
d) Has come / has been

Answer 1

Hint: We have to select the correct tense. There are two sentences so it is not necessary that both the sentences will have the same tense. The first sentence is talking about something done by Mike and Jack in the past (five months ago). The second tense is talking about their current location/situation.

Complete answer:
 Option a is “came” and “have been”. “Came” is in the past tense.
Mike and Jack came here five months ago. Five months ago refers to the past.
They have been in this city for five months. The “have been” is a present perfect tense which talks about their present scenario. A present perfect tense is used when we have done something in the past and it is true even today.
Something done in the past- Mike and Jack came here five months ago
Something done in the past which is true even today- They are still in the city.
So, we have to use the present perfect tense. Thus, option a is the right answer.
Option b is wrong because “have come” is in the present perfect tense. We cannot talk about something which has happened in the past by using any form of present tense. The second part of the option is correct but that does not mean we can select the whole option to be correct.
Option c is wrong because “come” is simple present tense. Simple present tense cannot be used to describe something which happened five months ago because the present tense talks about something which is happening right now.
“Were” cannot be used in the second part of the sentence because Mike and Jack are still in the city. Them staying in the city for five months is not something which has happened already. They are still in the city.
Option d is incorrect because of the wrong usage of the helping verb “has”. With more than one person, we use “have”. The first part of the option is in the present tense so it is wrong.

Note:
 Students might get confused between options a and b. We should always use a past tense with an event which has happened in the past. Also, both the parts of an option should be correct before the whole option can be selected as the correct answer.