Question

Transform the sentence with ‘as soon as’ to a sentence with ‘no sooner than’.
As soon as Meredith read his letter, she started crying.
a. No sooner had Meredith read his letter then she started crying.
b. No sooner had Meredith read his letter than she started crying.
c. No sooner have Meredith read his letter than she started crying.
d. No sooner does Meredith read his letter than she started crying.

Answer 1

Hint: Read the given sentence and understand what it means. Now, go through the options and look for the one which expresses the meaning of the given sentence and is also grammatically sound, while using ‘no sooner than’. Keep in mind the tense of the sentence.

Complete answer: In grammar, conjunction may be a part of speech that
connects words and phrases that are officially called the conjuncts of the conjunctions.
Conjunctions have a crucial function because they join two sentences together. Without
conjunctions, we could only make extremely simple sentences. Some conjunctions contain
multiple words. They are called correlative conjunctions.

So, the sentence will be split up into two parts: The first part will be ‘Meredith read his letter’ and the second part will be ‘she started crying’. These will be surrounded by the correlative conjunctions. This is the appropriate place to put the conjunctions.

Now, we know what we are looking for. Let’s go through the available options:
a. No sooner had Meredith read his letter then she started crying. - This sentence has placed the conjunctions correctly, however, the word ‘then’ is not the required conjunction. This sentence is grammatically incorrect. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
b. No sooner had Meredith read his letter than she started crying. - This sentence has the correct tense of the verbs used in the sentence. This is the required answer. So, this is the correct option.
c. No sooner have Meredith read his letter than she started crying. - This sentence has placed the conjunctions correctly, however, the verbs are in the wrong tense. This sentence is grammatically incorrect. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
d. No sooner does Meredith read his letter than she started crying. - This sentence has placed the conjunctions correctly, however, the verbs are in the wrong tense. This sentence is grammatically incorrect. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
Therefore, option b is correct.

Note: ‘No sooner than’ is used in present and past tenses and can only be used in a sentence in which two actions are taking place. ‘No sooner’ should never be followed by the word when.