Question

Select a suitable verb form:
I can’t find my binoculars. Do you know where_______________?
a)It is
b)It was
c)They are
d)They were

Answer 1

Hint: Verbs are words that show action, occurrence, or state of being. Almost every sentence requires a verb. Examples of verbs are – sing, run, dance, eat, slide, etc. Here, we are talking about binoculars and they are always referred to in the plural form.

Complete answer:

Here we are talking about binoculars, which is a form of plural noun whose singular form is never used as we always refer to them in pairs.
Now, keeping this mind let us look into the options given –
Option a) – ‘it is’, both ‘it & is’ are in singular form i.e. they do not refer to a plural noun.
Option b) – ‘it was’, both ‘it & was’ are singular forms. Therefore, they do not refer to a plural noun.
Option c) – ‘they are’, ‘they’ is a plural pronoun (used for binoculars), and ‘are’ is a plural verb.
Option d) – ‘they were’, here ‘they’ is a plural pronoun (used for binoculars) and ‘were’ is a plural form of was but is a past tense verb of was. Hence, it cannot be used.
Therefore, option c is the correct answer.

Note: One must not confuse with option d (by considering it to be correct) because it refers to the past tense whereas the question asked is in the present tense. Therefore, one must keep in mind the tense being used while forming the sentence and try not to change the tense while filling up the blanks.