MixedTenses in Paragraph (25

In the following passage, fill in each of the numbered blanks with the correct form of the word given in brackets.

26.

YogeshwarDutt was tense when the 31-year-old wrestler from Haryana …1… (walk) into the middle for his final bout.

The time the slender Dutt took in …2… (down) his burly Tajik opponent to lift the title in the 65kg freestyle category, …3… (seem) to be the longest in his career. But, in the end, a …4… (pant) Yogeshwar kept his promise to himself and the nation.

He gave India its first Gold medal in …5… (wrestle) after a long gap of 28 years and joined honours with Kartar Singh who …6… (win) a gold in the Asian Games at Seoul way back in 1986.

With Yogeshwar’s gold, India rose to the number nine position in the overall medals tally and Dutt said later in the day that he …7… (be) proud about his country …8… (break) into the top 10 nations at Incheon.

27.

In the field of journalism, cartoonists …1… (consider) as an unusual breed of people. By …2… (draw) a few lines, they can highlight or …3… (reduce) to dust somebody’s character in the society. Their style of expression can …4… (deliver) a strong blow to the subject of caricature. R.K. Laxman …5… (be) a cartoonist …6… (endow) with the skill to draw attractive cartoons. With a deep understanding of political and social realities, he was able to see and express the reality through his protagonist – the Common Man with a …7… (close) umbrella. For the readers, the Common Man …8… (become) a signature of Laxman’s art.

28.

Nasruddin …1… (accompany) a renowned scholar for a meal in a local restaurant, where they ordered for two fish.

A few minutes later, the waiter brought out a platter with two …2… (bake) fish on it, one of which was quite a bit bigger than the other. Nasruddin took the bigger fish. …3… (Give) Nasruddin a look of intense disbelief, the scholar told him that what he …4… (do) was not only selfish, but also …5… (violate) the principles of good etiquette. Nasruddin listened to the philosopher patiently, and said, “Well, Sir, what would you …6… (do) ?”

“I, being a gentleman, …7… (take) the smaller fish for myself.”

“And here you are,” said, Nasruddin “and …8… (place) the smaller fish on the scholar’s plate”.

29.

A minister in the government whose knowledge of English was very poor …1… (provide) with a secretary …2… (write) speeches for him. …3… ‘(Give) me a fifteen-minute speech on the non-aligned movement,’ ordered the minister.

The text was prepared to last fifteen minutes. But when the minister proceeded …4… (make) his speech, it took him half an hour to do so. The organisers of the conference …5… (upset) because their schedule …6… (disturb). The minister was upset because his secretary had let him down. He upbraided him: ‘I …7… (ask) for a fifteen minute speech; you gave me a half-hour speech. Why?’ he demanded.

‘Sir, I gave you a fifteen minute speech. But you …8… (read) out its carbon copy as well’.

30.

Chandi Prasad Bhatt …1… (launch) a public campaign, …2… (know) as the ‘Chipko’ Movement, to protect the trees against the axe. In this movement, village women played an active role. They took up their positions with each …3… (hug) a tree by enveloping the trunk in their arms. This …4… (do) to warn the contractors that if they wanted …5… (cut) down a tree, they would have to attack the protestors first. Bhatt himself …6… (surprise) at the success of the movement and at the protectors’ positive participation to prevent the felling of trees. This unusual movement was successful as it …7… (base) on the principle of non-violence and …8… (focus) on the sentimental feelings of the local inhabitants who treated trees as their family members.

31.

It was John Stuart Mill who knocked at the door of Thomas Carlyle’s house that morning. Carlyle …1… (give) the manuscript of his monumental History of the French Revolution, to Mill for his suggestions. Mill’s housemaid had used it ignorantly …2… (start) a fire.

When he heard the news Carlyle’s head …3… (begin) to spin. His life’s work which he …4… (do) living in poverty, …5… (toil) at it for years was ow in ashes. And with the happiness of completed work, he had destroyed all his notes. The shock drained away all of Carlyle’s enthusiasm. He wouldn’t write any more.

A few days later, he was …6… (look) out of his of window when he noticed a group of brick-layers …7… (erect) the walls of a new building. Brick upon brick, row upon row, they made the building rise.

That was the encouragement Carlyle …8… (need). He took up his pen and recalled and rewrote word for word, sentence for sentence, page by page, the work that won him an eminent place in literary history.

32.

Till 1879, Procter and Gamble were dealing in candles. But the company was in trouble. Thomas Edison …1… (invent) the light bulb, and it looked as if candles had become obsolete. Their fears …2… (become) reality when the market for candles plummeted since they were then sold only for special occasions.

However, at this time, it seemed that destiny …3… (play) a dramatic role in …4… (pull) the struggling company out from the clutches of bankruptcy. A forgetful employee at a small factory forgot to turn off his machine when he went for lunch. He almost …5… (go) back, there was a frothing mass of lather filled with air bubbles. He almost …6… (throw) the stuff away but then he decided to make it into soap. The soap …7… (float) on water. Thus, Ivory Floating Soap …8… (born) and became the mainstay of the Procter and Gamble Company.

33.

Lil and Else …1… (be) the daughters of a washerwoman and a jailbird. Why Mrs.Kelvey, their mother, made them so conspicuous was hard …2… (understand). The truth was they …3… (dress) in ‘bits’ given to her by the people for whom she worked. Lil was a stout, plain child, with big freckles. And her little sister, Else was a tiny wishbone of a child, with …4… (crop) hair and enormous solemn eyes – a little white owl. Nobody …5… (see) her smile; she scarcely ever spoke. She went through life …6… (hold) on Lil, with a piece of Lil’s skirt screwed up in her hand. Where Lil went, Else …7… (follow). In the playground, on the road going to and from school, there was Lil …8… (march) in front and Else holding on behind.

34.

Ibrahim ibn Adham was a prince of a small kingdom in Persia. He was very pious and …1… (spend) many hours every day in prayer in a beautiful …2… (bejewel) mosque in his palace. One day, as he …3… (pray), he …4… (hear) a loud thumping sound on his roof. It sounded like the clattering of horses’ hooves! …5… (rush) out, he looked up at the roof, and sure enough, there …6… (be) his palace guards – twenty men on horseback.

“What on earth are you doing up there?” Ibrahim shouted. “Your Majesty,” the captain of the guard yelled back, “we are searching for our camels that …7… (wander) away.” “But why are you looking for camels on the roof?” asked the prince. “We are only following Your Majesty’s example; you strive …8… (seek) God while living in the luxuries of a royal palace,” came the reply.

35.

In the olden days, when merchant ships usually …1… (employ) teenage boys as part of the crew, a lad applied for one of these jobs. The owner of the …2… (ship) company asked him what he …3… (can) do.

“I can do my best,” the boy answered, “to do what you are kind enough …4… (let) me try.”

“What have you done?” asked the owner.

“I …5… (saw) and split wood for my mother for nearly two years,” replied the boy.

After some …6… (think) the boy said, “I have not gossiped in school for over a year.”

“That is enough,” said the merchant, “I …7… (take) you aboard my vessel and I hope some day …8… (see) you as its captain. A boy who can master a wood-pile and control his tongue must have good stuff in him”

36.

Rudyard Kipling was born in Mumbai on December 30^th 1865, son of John Lockwood Kipling, and his wife Alice. Rudyard’s earliest years in Mumbai were blissfully happy. But at the tender age of five he …1… (send) back to England …2… (stay) with a foster family in South sea, where he was desperately unhappy. The experience …3… (colour) some of his later writings. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Henry James said: “Kipling …4… (strike) me personally as the most complete man of genius that I …5… (know). In 1907, he …6… (award) the Nobel Prize in Literature, …7… (make) him the first English-language writer …8… (receive) the prize and, to date, he remains its youngest.

37.

The district administration here …1… (hire) langurs to control the monkey menace at the Green Park Stadium, which …2… (stage) the first ODI between India and South Africa on October 11. The administration has employed two langurs …3… (scare) away the monkeys. To ensure their effectiveness, the langurs …4… (stay) at the venue from Sunday. They …5… (take) to the points from where the monkeys enter the stadium. One of the owners said that regular …6… (patrol) by the langurs would act as a deterrent.

The monkeys frequent the nearby Parmat temple where they …7… (get) food and often stray into the stadium. The district administration would be paying Rs.5000 each for the two langurs, which cost Rs.7000-10,000 a month …8… (depend) on the hours of work.

38.

Think of the Nobel Prize and you think of groundbreaking research …1… (better) mankind, but the awards have also honoured some unhumanitarian …2… (invent) such as chemical weapons and DDT. Numerous Nobel Prize controversies …3… (erupt) over the years; authors who …4… (overlook), scientists who claimed their discovery came first. But some of the prizes appear in hindsight to be …5… (embarrass) choices.

When the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize went to the organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, it was perhaps a way of …6… (make) up for the Nobel ‘war prize’ it awarded to German chemist Fritz Haber in 1918. Haber …7… (honour) with the chemistry prize for his work on the synthesis of ammonia, which was crucial for developing fertilizers for food production. But Haber, known as the “father of chemical warfare,” also developed poisonous gases …8… (use) in trench warfare in World War I.

39.

A fox, who …1… (lose) its front legs while …2… (escape) from a trap, lived in a forest. People …3… (wonder) how the fox could move about and get its food. One day a young man saw a tiger …4… (bring) a fresh game in its claws. After it had its meal it left the rest for the fox. The same thing happened regularly every day.

The young man thought to himself, “If God …5… (care) for the lame fox in this way. He …6… (provide) food for me.” So the man stopped working and rested on his bed. After some days, he …7… (leave) alone to starve. When he began to lose consciousness, he heard a voice from above, “Dear man, you are mistaken in your judgement; see the truth. Follow the example of the tiger, instead of …8… (imitate) the disabled fox.”

40.

The ruler was about to celebrate the silver jubilee of his reign and his subjects met …1… (discuss) what they could do to please him. “Let us,” said one, “set up a great wine cask and fill it with the best wine our country …2… (produce) for him to drink with his guests at the …3… (celebrate) of the feast.” This plan …4… (approve). The subjects agreed that each of them should bring a bottle of the best wine he had and pour it into the cask until it was full. So it was done. On the day of the feast, the servants were busy …5… (draw) wine from the great tub, and …6… (find) to their surprise, that it was colourless like water. They tasted it. It was water!

This had happened because each of the men …7… (think), “In the great cask, no one …8… (notice) if I put in only water instead of wine.”

41.

An Arab …1… (walk) through the desert …2… (look) for some water to drink. He reached the spot in the corner where an old peddler …3… (sell) neckties. The thirsty traveller said to him, “Sir, I …4… (be) dying of thirst, may I have some water?”

The peddler replied, “I have no water, but can I sell you a tie?”

The desperate man shouted, “I don’t want a tie. I need water.”

“Then …5… (look), over that hill, about five miles, there is a hotel where you can get water.”

The Arab walked away towards the hill. After three hours he …6… (return) to the peddler, who asked him whether he …7… (find) the hotel. The Arab replied, “Yes, I found it, but they would not …8… (let) me in without a tie.”

42.

A king once owned a large beautiful diamond. He was proud of it because it had no equal anywhere. One day, the diamond accidentally …1… (drop) on the floor and sustained a deep scratch. The king called in the expert diamond cutters and offered them a reward if they could remove the imperfection from his …2… (treasure) jewel. But no one could repair the blemish by …3… (rectify) the defect.

After some time, a gifted jeweller came to the king and …4… (promise) to make the royal diamond even more …5… (attract) than it …6… (be) before the accident.

The king was …7… (impress) by his confidence and entrusted the precious stone to his care. The man kept his word. With superb artistry, he engraved a lovely rosebud around the imperfection. He had used the scratch …8… (make) the stem.

43.

Years ago, the Clark family in Scotland had a dream. Clark and his wife worked and saved, making plans for their children and themselves …1… (travel) to the United States. It …2… (take) years, but they had finally saved enough money and had got passports and reservations for the family on a new ship to the United States.

The family was filled with excitement at the thought of going to the US. However, seven days before their departure, the youngest son …3… (bit) by a dog. The doctor …4… (hang) a yellow sheet on the Clark’s front door to warn people of the possibility of rabies. The Clarks …5… (quarantine) for fourteen days.

The family’s dreams …6… (shatter). They could not make the trip to America as they …7… (plan). The father shed tears of disappointment and cursed both his son and the dog for their misfortune.

Five days later, the tragic news spread throughout Scotland – the mighty Titanic in which the Clarks were to travel …8… (sink), taking hundreds of lives with it.

44.

…1… (Walk) along a Russian street during the famine, Tolstoy …2… (meet) a beggar. Tolstoy …3… (check) through his pockets …4… (find) something he might give the man. But they were empty. He …5… (give) away all his money earlier. In his pity he reached out, took the beggar in his arms, kissed him on his hollow checks and said: “Don’t be angry with me, my brother, I have nothing …6… (give) you.”

The pale, thin face of the beggar …7… (light) up. Tears …8… (shine) in his eyes, as he said, “But you called me brother – that is a great gift.”

45.

A reporter …1… (call) on Thomas A. Edison one afternoon, …2… (interview) him about a substitute for lead in the manufacture of storage batteries that the scientist …3… (look) for . Edison informed the man that he …4… (make) 20,000 experiments but none of them …5… (work).

“But aren’t you …6… (discourage) by all this waste of effort?” the reporter asked, amazed.

“Waste?” exclaimed Edison. “There …7… (be) no waste. I …8… (discover) 20,000 things that won’t work.”

46.

Harish, a young taxi driver claimed that a monster had …1… (attack) him while he was …2… (drive) along a lonely road. The monster …3… (be) five feet tall, had red eyes and a hairy body. After …4… (chase) the taxi for a kilometer, he had jumped on his roof and scratched the face of the driver. Many people said that they believed in the …5… (exist) of the monster and the newspapers called the monster the Monkey-man …7… (become) so popular that crowds came to Delhi to see him. No one has …8… (find) him. As everyone knows, monsters may or may not exist, but they are good for the tourist industry.

47.

It was John Stuart Mill who knocked at the door of Thomas Carlyle’s house that morning. Carlyle …1… (give) the manuscript of his monumental History of the French Revolution, to Mill for is suggestions. Mill’s housemaid had used it ignorantly …2… (start) a fire.

When Carlyle heard the news his head …3… (begin) to spin. His life’s work which he …4… (do) living in poverty, …5… (toil) at it for years was now in ashes. And with the happiness of completed work, he had destroyed all his notes. The shock drained away all of Carlyle’s enthusiasm. He wouldn’t write any more.

A few days late, he was …6… (look) out of his of window when he noticed a group of brick-layers …7… (erect) the walls of a new building. Brick upon brick, now upon row, they made the building rise.

48.

49.

“I can do my best,” the boy answered, “to do what you are kind enough …4… (let) me try.”

“What have you done?” asked the owner.

“I …5… (saw) and split wood for my mother for nearly two years,” replied the boy.

After some …6… (think) the boy said, “I have not gossiped in school for over a year.”

50.

Studies …1… (establish) that breakfast, the most important meal of the day is also the most …2… (neglect). Skipping breakfast leads to weight gain and obesity, which in turn puts one at risk for a host of health problems …3… (include) diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. A recent survey …4… (find) that 40% of school children …5… (do) not eat proper breakfast.

Experts say that when we wake up, our blood sugar levels are already down. If we continue …6… (stay) hungry, the body goes into stress mode and …7… (release) cortisol, a hormone. If we continue to miss breakfast for a long time and cortisol levels stay unchecked, it affects our thyroid …8… (function) and, this further leads to auto-immune disorders.

Answers

26.

walked
downing
seemed
panting
wrestling
had won
was
breaking

27.

are considered
drawing
reduce
deliver
was
endowed
closed
became

28.

accompanied
baked
Giving
did
violated
do
would take
placed

29.

was provided
to write
Give
to make
were upset
Was disturbed
had asked
read

30.

launched
known
hugging
was done
to cut
was surprised
was based
focused

31.

had given
to start
began
did
toiling
looking
erecting
needed

32.

had invented;
Became;
Played;
pulling
went;
threw;
floated;
was born

33.

were
to understand
dressed
cropped
saw
holding
followed
marching

34.

spent
bejewelled
was praying
heard
Rushing
were
have wandered
to seek

35.

employed
shipping
could
to let
sawed
thinking
will take
to see

36.

was sent
to stay
coloured
strikes
know
was awarded
making
to receive

37.

has hired
will stage
to scare
will be staying
were taken
patrolling
get
depending

38.

for bettering
inventions
have erupted
were overlooked
embarrassing
making
was honoured
used

39.

lost
escaping
wondered
bringing
cares
would provide
was left
imitating

40.

to discuss
has produced
celebration
was approved
drawing
found
thought
will notice

41.

was walking
looking
was selling
am
look
returned
had found
let

42.

dropped
treasured
rectifying
promised
attractive
was
impressed
to make

43.

to travel
took
was bitten
hung
were quarantined
were shattered
had planned
had sunk

44.

walking
met
checked
to find
had given
to give
lightened
shone

45.

called
to interview
was looking
had made
worked
discouraged
is
Have discovered

46.

attacked
driving
was
chasing
existence
catch
became
found

47.

had given
to start
began
had done
toiling
looking
erecting
needed

48.

spent
bejeweled
was praying
heard
Rushing
were
have wandered
to seek

49.

employed
shipping
could
to let
sawed
thinking
will take
to see

50.

have established
neglected
including
has found
do
to stay
releases
functioning

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MixedTenses in Paragraph (25 - 50 )