Question

Fill in the blanks with the most appropriate word.
I ________ them for 10 months.
Know
A) Knows
B) Have known
C) Will know
D) Shall know

Answer 1

Hint: Identify the tense being used here. Ensure that you are aware of all the types of tenses to be able to solve such problems. By heart all the forms of the tenses to ensure that you don’t commit mistakes while solving such problems.

Complete answer:
‘For 10 months’ refers to a period of time which started in the past and is still going on/ or might have completed the action in the recent past. But if you figure out the verb in the sentence, i.e. ‘know’, we can infer that knowing someone cannot end after a period of time. If you know someone, you have known that person since the time you met them till now and you will know them in the future as well. Hence, this is a present perfect continuous tense.

Option A: ‘know’ is in the form of a simple present tense. But now that we know that the given statement is in present perfect continuous tense, we can say this is an incorrect answer.
Option B: ‘knows’ is in the form of a simple present tense. But now that we know that the given statement is in present perfect continuous tense, we can say this is an incorrect answer.
Option C: ‘Have known’ is in the form of a present perfect continuous tense, because the form of a present perfect continuous tense is ‘ Subject + has/ have + past participle/ v3 + object’. The same is mentioned in the option. Hence, we can say that this is the correct answer.
Option D: ‘Will know’ is in the future tense. But now that we know that the given statement is in present perfect continuous tense, we can say this is an incorrect answer.
Option E: ‘Shall know’ is also in the future tense. But now that we know that the given statement is in present perfect continuous tense, we can say this is an incorrect answer.

Hence the correct answer is option ‘C’

Note: Whenever you want to identify if the sentence is in perfect tense or not, check for its main verb. If it is in v3/ part participle form, then the sentence is in perfect tense. And to know if the sentence is in present/ past/ future, look out for the ‘be’ forms in the sentence. They would tell you the exact tense of the sentence.