Festival Report: Tense, Passive and Cohesion Gaps
Your teacher returns this draft paragraph from a school festival report. Four places are underlined, and you must choose the best option for each. 'Last year, the festival committee ______ (1) the schedule three times before the event. By the time the gates opened, the stage ______ (2) and the chairs had been arranged. ______ (3) the rain, more than 800 visitors came. The committee later said that the new layout ______ (4) shorter queues.' The options are: (1) A revised B has revised C was revising D revises; (2) A has completed B had been completed C was completing D completes; (3) A Although B Despite C However D Because of; (4) A resulted B resulted in C resulted from D was resulted. The teacher's note says: 'Check time relationships and sentence structure, not just the words next to the gap. One gap tests cohesion rather than grammar.'
1. Choose the correct option for gaps 1–4 and explain the time or meaning clue that decides each.
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- A revised - 'Last year' is a finished past time, and the three revisions happened before the event, so past simple is correct; present perfect (B) cannot be used with a finished past time.
- B had been completed - 'By the time the gates opened' marks an earlier past event; the stage is the object, so past perfect passive is needed.
- B Despite - it takes a noun phrase ('the rain') and expresses concession. A 'Although' needs a clause; C 'However' is a conjunctive adverb and would need a semicolon or full stop; D 'Because of' would reverse the logic.
- B resulted in - the new layout caused shorter queues. 'Resulted from' would mean the queues caused the layout; 'was resulted' is not used in English. The teacher's note points to time relationships and meaning, not just neighbouring words.
2. Why is option C ('However') tempting in gap 3, and what punctuation would it require?
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C is tempting because the sentence needs a contrast: rain versus 800 visitors. But 'however' is a conjunctive adverb, not a conjunction. It cannot join two clauses with only a comma: 'However the rain, more than 800 visitors came' is ungrammatical. It would need 'However, more than 800 visitors came' after a full stop or semicolon, and even then the logical link would be less compact than 'Despite the rain'. The gap tests cohesion and punctuation as much as vocabulary.
3. Which gap tests cohesion rather than grammar, and what does the correct choice signal about the writer's attitude to the rain?
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Gap 3 tests cohesion. The correct choice, 'Despite', signals concession: the rain is acknowledged as a possible obstacle, but the main clause emphasises that 800 visitors came anyway. 'Because of' would make the rain a cause of the visitors, which is illogical. 'Although' would also mark concession but requires a full clause ('Although it rained'). The choice therefore shapes the relationship between two ideas, not just the grammar of one phrase.