Question

Fill in the blanks with the most appropriate words-
We ____ ready when you ____ home.
a- are/ will come
b- shall/ come
c- shall be/ will come
d- shall be/ come
e- will be/ came

Answer 1

Hint: We use ‘shall’ with first-person pronouns to form the appropriate future tense. We use ‘shall be’ to indicate an action that will take place in the future for a specific period of time.

Complete answer:
As given in the hint, ‘shall’ is used to form the future tense.
Let’s look at ‘shall’ and ‘shall be’-
‘Shall’ is used to form the simple future tense. It indicates an action that will begin and end in the future itself. Example- I shall visit you.
‘Shall be’ is used to form the future continuous tense. It indicates an action that will take place in the future for an expected time period. Example- I shall be ready when you reach.
In the given question- We can comprehend that ‘X’ and ‘Y’ shall be ready when ‘Z’ comes home. Here, we have used the simple present tense of ‘come’, because the main clause utilizes the future continuous tense form of ‘shall’.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option a- ‘are/will come’ is an incorrect option, because we cannot use ‘simple present tense’ to indicate an action that will take place in the future.
Option b- ‘shall/come’ is an incorrect option, because we cannot use ‘simple future tense’ to indicate an action that will continue for a certain time in the future.
Option c- ‘shall be/will come’ is an incorrect option because we cannot ‘will come’ as the main clause has already used ‘shall’.
Option d- ‘shall be/come’ is the correct option, as explained above.
Option e- ‘will be/came’ is an incorrect option, because ‘will’ is used with second and third-person pronouns.
So, the correct answer is “Option d”.

Note:
‘Shall’ is used to indicate permission, whereas ‘shall be’ is used to indicate requests and statements. Also, ‘shall be’ is used in formal conversations and write-ups.