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Difficulty: MediumShifts in Construction

Read the sentence below. To maintain a consistent grammatical construction and avoid an incorrect shift in verb tense, which form of the verb 'freeze' should be written in the blank?

Answer:After the botanist gathered several rare specimens from the rainforest canopy, she 【froze】 them in her laboratory to preserve their delicate structures.

Answer

froze
The verb 'gathered' in the first clause establishes a past-time frame. To maintain consistency and avoid an incorrect shift in verb tense, the second action in the sequence must also be in the past tense. The correct past-tense form of 'freeze' is 'froze'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the timeframe of the first clause in the sentence.
The verb 'gathered' is in the past tense, establishing that the actions in the sentence occurred in the past.
Establishing the initial verb tense is necessary to determine the required tense for subsequent verbs in the same sequence.
2
Determine if there is a shift in timeframe between the two actions.
Both the gathering of specimens and the freezing of specimens occurred in the past as part of a single sequence of events, meaning no timeframe shift is warranted.
Verbs in a sentence must remain in the same tense unless there is a clear, logical reason for a shift in time.
3
Conjugate the verb 'freeze' to match the established past tense.
The past-tense form of the irregular verb 'freeze' is 'froze'.
Writing 'froze' in the blank maintains tense consistency and avoids an incorrect shift in construction.

Key Concept

Shifts in Construction: Verb Tense Consistency
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Topics

Shifts in Construction

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