Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
Jim and Julia have been in the restaurant for an hour and they have not been served yet. Julia is angry. “You said ______ a good place”, she says to Jim.
a. this can’t be
b. this has been
c. this will be
d. this was

Answer 1

Hint: The first sentence already tells us the situation. Look for pointers suggesting which tense to use. The phrase being repeated is indirect speech which means it will not be in the present tense. These pointers are indicators of a certain tense.

Complete answer: Let us look at the given sentence first:
The first sentence describes a present situation which is that two people have been waiting in a restaurant for a long time without having been served. This has made one of the subjects angry. So, she repeats a sentence that Jim had said. This statement is in indirect speech, which means that the tense should be simple past tense.

The simple past tense is used to describe events that took place in the past and is
constructed by adding the suffixes ‘-d’ or ‘-ed’ to root verbs.
Now, we know what we want in the given sentence. Let’s look at the given options:
a. this can’t be - This phrase is in the simple present tense, which does not fit into the given sentence at all, as this is not the required tense. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
b. this has been - This phrase is in the present perfect tense, which does not fit into the given sentence at all, as this is not the required tense. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
c. this will be - This phrase is in the simple future tense, which does not fit into the given sentence at all, as this is not the required tense. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
d. this was - This phrase is in the simple past tense, which fits perfectly into the given sentence and it is the required tense. This is the required answer. So, this is the correct option. Therefore, option d is the right answer

Note: For regular verbs, add -ed to the root form of the verb (or just -d if the root form already ends in an e. eg: Play→Played Type→Typed. The simple past tense of some irregular verbs looks exactly like the root form. eg: Put→Put Cut→Cut.