Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
We can't eat rice before it's ____.
A. Cooked
B. Cooking
C. Cooks
D. To cook

Answer 1

Hint: When the first action is depending on the second then the first action’s tense must be in past / past participle based on the second action’s verb is in. Choose the most appropriate option accordingly.

Complete answer:
Here, the first action is supposed to be figured out by us, so let us find out the tense of the second action i.e. ‘eat’. ‘Eat’ is in simple past tense. Hence, the first action must be expressed in simple past tense. Because the first action was performed earlier than the second action.

Option A is the appropriate answer as it indicates the use of 'cooked' which is a past tense as well. The other options are wrong as no other tense can be used here.

Option B is incorrect. 'Cooking' is not a past tense. Plus, if we use the word 'cooking' to complete the given sentence then it will spoil the sentence grammatically as well as literary. Therefore, Option B is not the right answer.

Option C is also incorrect. 'Cooks' could have been used in the case of a third person. The sentence does not indicate the presence of a third person. Hence, it would be inappropriate to use 'cooks' in the sentence. Therefore Option C is incorrect.

Option D is not the correct answer. As the hint suggests 'to cook' is not a past tense. Plus it signifies the presence of an infinitive which is not needed in the sentence. 'To cook' is absolutely inappropriate to use in the sentence because it makes no sense if fitted in the sentence. Thus, Option D is also wrong.

Thus the correct answer is option ‘A’.

Note: The simple past tense shows that you are talking about something that has already happened. Unlike the past continuous tense, which is used to talk about past events that happened over a period of time, the simple past tense emphasizes that the action is finished.