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Question

Difficulty: MediumVerbs, Tenses, and Aspect

Complete the sentence below by supplying the grammatically correct verb form in the blank.

Answer:By the time the rescue team finally arrived at the collapsed mine, the trapped workers 【had been waiting】 for assistance for nearly three days.

Answer

had been waiting
The sentence requires the past perfect continuous tense because the action of waiting was continuous over a specific duration ('for nearly three days') prior to a completed past event ('arrived'). The structure 'had been waiting' correctly expresses this past-before-past continuous relationship.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the temporal reference points in the sentence.
The phrase 'By the time...' combined with the simple past verb 'arrived' establishes a fixed past reference point.
This establishes that the entire situation occurred in the past prior to another completed past event.
2
Determine the required tense and aspect based on the time expression.
The duration marker 'for nearly three days' indicates an ongoing action that began before the past reference point and continued up until that moment.
An action continuous in duration up to a specific past moment requires the past perfect continuous tense ('had been + -ing verb').

Key Concept

Past Perfect Continuous Aspect
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Topics

Verbs, Tenses, and Aspect

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