Question

Fill in the blanks:
(0) looked
Suraj (0) ____ (look) out of the door. He (1)_____ (catch) sight of the board (2) ____ (bear) the station’s name. He was so (3) ____ (astonish) that he almost (4) ____ (fall) out of the compartment. He was back in his hometown! After (5) _____ (travel) for forty or fifty kilometres, here he (6) ____ (is) home again. He (7) ____ (can) not understand it. He (8) _____ (climb) out of the compartment slowly.

Answer 1

Hint: The first sentence already tells us the situation. Look for pointers suggesting which tense to use. The actions are completed in the second sentence. These pointers are indicators of a certain tense.

Complete answer:
Let us look at the given sentences first- It narrates an incident in a person’s life. It is very clearly an incident that happened in the past. There is even more evidence that points to this fact.

Let us go through this sentence by sentence-
The first blank is already given in the question. It is ‘looked’. This word is in the simple past tense. This means that the blank 0 should be filled with the word ‘looked’.
Then, the second sentence tells us that he did something with the board. This verb should be in the past tense as the action has been completed. The verb ‘catch’ is written as ‘caught’. This is the answer for blank 1. Then, blank 2 refers to something being written on the board. This is a continuous action as the board still technically bears the name. So, the word ‘bear’ will be converted to ‘bearing’. This is the answer for blank 2.
The third sentence is completely in the past tense. This means that blank 3 will be filled by the past tense of ‘astonish’. The past tense version of ‘astonish’ is ‘astonished’. This is the answer for blank 3. Then, the word ‘fall’ is written as ‘fell’ in the past tense. This is the answer for blank 4.
The fourth sentence does not contain any blanks.
The fifth sentence denotes a continuous action for the first part, so the word ‘travel’ will be converted to ‘travelling’. This is the answer for blank 5. The latter part is simple past tense as it states a simple action that happened in the past. The word ‘is’ is written as ‘was’ in the past tense. This is the answer for blank 6.
The sixth and seventh sentence are both in simple past tense again. So, the word ‘can’ is converted to ‘could’. This is the answer for blank 7. And, the word ‘climb’ is converted to ‘climbed’. This is the answer for blank 8.

So, the complete answer is-
Suraj looked out of the door. He caught sight of the board bearing the station’s name. He was so astonished that he almost fell out of the compartment. He was back in his hometown! After travelling for forty or fifty kilometres, here he was home again. He could not understand it. He climbed out of the compartment slowly.

Note:
 There are different tenses in each sentence. Try to understand the meaning of the sentence. This will help you gauge which tense to use. Discover the words that point to a certain tense. Then, go through the given options and choose the correct answer accordingly.