Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
The phone rang ____ I was having supper.
A. while
B. during
C. for
D. in

Answer 1

Hint: Conjunctions are those words that help in connecting phrases or clauses to form a meaningful sentence. Clauses are those phrases that contain a subject and a verb.

Complete answer:
Let’s look at the two types of clauses-
Independent clause- It contains a subject and a verb that are capable of standing alone as a sentence. For example- The boy smiled.
Dependent clause- It contains a subject and a verb that produce an incomplete thought or meaning. For example- I could hear what she was saying
In the given question: We can see an independent clause, ‘the phone rang’ and a dependent clause, ‘I was having supper’. So, we need to join these clauses with the help of a comma, semicolon, or conjunction.
We use ‘while’ to indicate two things happening at the same time.
Hence, the correct answer is; The phone rang while I was having supper.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option A. ‘while’ is the correct option because it is a subordinating conjunction that helps in joining an independent and dependent clause.
Option B. ‘during’ is an incorrect option because it is a preposition that is used to indicate when an action happened.
Option C. ‘for’ is an incorrect option because it is used to give a reason, as to why something happened.
Option D. ‘in’ is an incorrect option because it is a preposition that is used to indicate the location of an object. The correct answer is Option ‘a’.

Note:
Keep in mind, we join independent and dependent clauses with the help of subordinating conjunctions. For example- Because, although, when, etc.