Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word;
What would you have done if you _____ a lot of money?
A) Had
B) Have had
C) Had had
D) Should have had

Answer 1

Hint: The sentence given in the question is in the past perfect tense. Therefore, we must look for the option in which the verb is also in the past perfect tense. Past perfect sentences always use the past participle form of the given verb. For e.g. past participle of eat is eaten.

Complete answer:
The sentence given in the question has two clauses. The first clause is ‘what would you have done’ and the second clause is ‘you _____ a lot of money’. As we can see the blank is in the second clause. The second clause has a subject ‘you’, an object ‘a lot of money’ but it does not have a verb. Hence, we will use a verb, that too in the correct form to fill the blank.

Now let us analyze the given options:
Option A) Had – This option is incorrect as we use 'had' as the helping verb in the past perfect tense, just before the main verb. The main verb should have been ‘have’ in this case, which is missing. Hence, this option is incorrect.
Option B) Have had – This option is also incorrect because the auxiliary verb here is ‘have’, which makes the sentence in the present perfect tense. We need an auxiliary verb in the past perfect tense to fill the blank.
Option C) Had had – This option is correct because it has the verb "had" which is in the past perfect tense. The main verb here is also ‘had’, which is actually, the past participle form of the verb ‘have’. also “have”. This option has both our requirements and hence is the correct option.
Option D) Should have had – When we use the words ‘should have’, it basically refers to something that did not happen but we wish it had happened. In this sentence, it is irrelevant because we are not wishing for something to happen. Rather, we are imagining a hypothetical situation. Hence, this option is also wrong.

Thus, the correct answer is Option (C) What would you have done if you had had a lot of money?

Note:
- We can say that the past perfect tense is used to indicate that an event or an action took place prior to another event in the past or before a specific time in the past.
- The basic formula for constructing a sentence in the past perfect tense is subject-had-past participle verb. For e.g. I had eaten.
- Sometimes we also add the word ‘just’ after ‘had’ to indicate that the action was only a short time prior. For e.g. I had just eaten before you came.