Question

Fill in the blanks with the most appropriate word:
“By the time I get home the story _____ in the evening newspaper. He thought.
A) Appears
B) Would be
C) Will have appeared
D) Has appeared

Answer 1

Hint: Verb tenses will tell us how an action relates to the flow of time. There are three main tenses: present, past and future tenses.

Complete answer:
The sentence showing what ‘he thought’: "By the time I get home the story ____ in the evening newspaper." The sentence can be divided into two parts: ‘By the time I get home’ and ‘the story _____ in the evening newspaper.’ The first part shows that the person who is thinking this has not yet reached home and is expecting something to happen by the time he reaches home.

The second part shows that whatever he expects to happen is related to the story and the newspaper. The mention of the story and newspaper clearly assumes that the sentence is referring to the action of publishing. Now, as what he expects to happen will happen in a future time, so the second part of the sentence is in future tense and as he presumes that the action will be completed, so the tense is future perfect tense.

The future perfect tense indicates that an action will have been completed (finished or "perfected") at some point in the future. This tense is formed with "will" plus "have" plus the past participle of the verb.

Let us look into the given options
Option A) Appears – is an incorrect answer because ‘appear’ would make the sentence grammatically incorrect. Hence, this is an incorrect answer.
Option B) Would be – is an incorrect answer because ‘would be’ would make the sentence grammatically incorrect. Hence, this is an incorrect answer.
Option C) Will have appeared – is the correct answer because ‘will have appeared’ is the only option that is meeting the requirement of structure of future perfect tense. Hence, this is the correct answer.
Option D) Has appeared - is an incorrect answer because ‘has appeared’ would make the sentence grammatically incorrect. Hence, this is an incorrect answer.
“By the time I get home the story will have appeared in the evening newspaper. He thought.

Hence the correct answer is option ‘C’.

Note: The best way to memorize verb tenses in the following formula: Personal pronoun + tense form (I write, he writes, we write, you write, etc.) Memorizing tense forms in such constructions will also help you to memorize basic subject-verb agreement in person and number.