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Difficulty: MediumVerb Tense and Consistency

The passage below is from a historical report about the Terracotta Army. Read the passage and choose the option that best maintains grammatical correctness and tense consistency.

In 1974, a group of farmers digging a well near Xi'an, China, stumbled upon one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. As they cleared the dirt, they uncovered a life-sized clay soldier, which prompted archeologists to investigate the site further. Soon, excavators realized that thousands of unique terracotta statues lay buried in orderly ranks. The lifelike soldiers, representing different ranks in the emperor's army, wear detailed armor and stood in silent vigilance for over two millennia.

Which choice best completes the sentence by maintaining a consistent and grammatically correct verb tense throughout the passage?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. woreAnswer
  3. C
    is wearing
  4. D
    wearing

Answer

The correct option is 'wore' because it is a simple past tense verb that matches 'stood' and maintains the consistent past tense narrative established throughout the passage.
The correct option is 'wore' because the entire passage describes historical events in the past tense (such as 'stumbled', 'cleared', 'realized', and 'stood'). Using the past tense form 'wore' is parallel to 'stood' and maintains the consistent chronological framework of the narrative.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the context of the passage to identify the primary tense.
The narrative is written in the past tense, using verbs such as 'stumbled', 'cleared', 'uncovered', 'prompted', 'realized', 'lay', and 'stood'.
Verb tenses must remain consistent unless there is a logical reason to shift time periods.
2
Examine the underlined verb's role in the target sentence.
The verb is part of a compound predicate ('wear... and stood') modifying the plural subject 'soldiers'.
Both verbs in the compound predicate must be parallel in structure and consistent in tense.
3
Evaluate the choices to find the one that maintains past-tense consistency and parallelism.
The past-tense verb 'wore' matches the past-tense verb 'stood' and fits the plural subject 'soldiers'.
This maintains tense consistency and grammatical parallelism within the sentence and paragraph.

Key Concept

Verb Tense and Consistency
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Topics

Verb Tense and Consistency

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