Question

The DSP had ordered the probe and ____ it himself.
A) was supervising
B) has supervised
C) supervised
D) had supervised

Answer 1

Hint: The tense category expresses the passage of time. The usage of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns, is usually how tenses are expressed. Tense expresses the chronological placement of an occurrence. The accompanying verb forms distinguish the various tenses.

Complete answer:
The past tense is a grammatical tense that refers to an action or event that occurred in the past.
The Past Continuous tense represents action that occurred at a certain point in time in the past.
The structure of the past continuous tense is:
Subject+ was/were+ present participle (verb-ing)
Keeping this rule in mind we will not choose from the given options:
A) was supervising: This is the correct option. In the above sentence, the DSP has ordered for a probe in the case and he was looking into it himself. Therefore, the sentence represents the action of the DSP looking into the case at a certain point of time, so we will use past continuous tense. Thus, the correct option would be: was supervising.

B) has supervised: This option is incorrect because in the above sentence, a past action is mentioned that occurred at a particular point of time. Therefore, we have to use the past continuous tense whereas this option uses the present perfect tense.

C) supervised: This option is incorrect because the above sentence conveys that he monitored the probe himself while the rescue was taking place, according to the sentence. As a result, the act of supervising persisted throughout the investigation. As a result, 'was supervising' will be in the past continuous tense.

D) had supervised: This option is incorrect because it uses past perfect tense, whereas in the above sentence, a past action is mentioned that occurred at a particular point of time. Therefore, we have to use the past continuous tense.

Thus, the correct answer is Option (A) i.e, was supervising.

Note: Past, present, and future are the three main tenses. Each of these tenses has four distinct features in English: simple, perfect, continuous (also known as progressive), and perfect continuous. The verb to have is used to establish the perfect aspect, while the verb to be is used to generate the continuous aspect.