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Question

Difficulty: MediumVerbs, Tenses, and Aspect

Which verb form grammatically completes the sentence below?

Answer:Scarcely had the newly appointed dean 【concluded】 his inaugural address when the sudden power failure disrupted the auditorium.

Answer

The past participle form 'concluded' (or 'finished', 'completed', 'delivered') correctly completes the inverted past perfect construction.
The sentence features an inverted past perfect structure initialized by the restrictive adverb 'Scarcely'. In this structure ('Scarcely had' + subject + past participle), the auxiliary verb 'had' dictates that the main verb must take the past participle form ('concluded').

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the grammatical construction at the beginning of the sentence.
The sentence begins with the restrictive adverb 'Scarcely', which triggers subject-auxiliary verb inversion.
When restrictive adverbs such as 'scarcely', 'hardly', or 'barely' introduce a clause, the auxiliary verb precedes the subject.
2
Determine the required principal part of the main verb following the past perfect auxiliary.
The past perfect auxiliary 'had' requires the main verb to be in its past participle form.
The past perfect aspect is formed using 'had' + past participle to indicate an action completed prior to another past event.

Key Concept

Inverted Past Perfect Tense with Restrictive Adverbs
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Topics

Verbs, Tenses, and Aspect

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