Skip to main contentSkip to solution

Fill in the blank in the following sentence with the most appropriate option:

The woodcutter _________ the log when it started to rain.

Solution

✅ Correct Option: 4

An action that had been going on for some time before it was interrupted by a past event ('when it started to rain') takes the past perfect continuous: 'The woodcutter had been sawing the log when it started to rain.' The simple past forms do not convey the interrupted ongoing action, and 'saw'/'saws' are also wrong in form or tense.

Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Left arrow: Previous question
  • Right arrow: Next question
  • S key: Jump to solution
  • Q key: Jump to question