Five Blanks, Five Time Signals: A Trip Paragraph
A classmate has written a paragraph about a family trip. Five parts are missing, and she must choose one option for each. She says, 'I just pick the one that sounds natural.'
Last summer my sister and I (1) ______ our aunt in Kyoto. She (2) ______ in the same house for twenty years, and she still lives there. On the first day she took us to a small temple (3) ______ a famous priest once stayed. That morning it was (4) ______ crowded that we could not take any pictures. My sister said she (5) ______ come back in winter.
Choices: (1) have visited / visited / had visited (2) lives / has lived / had lived (3) which / where / whose (4) so / such / too (5) will / would / shall
You are helping her check the answers before she hands the paragraph in.
1. Explain how the words 'Last summer' and 'still lives there' decide blanks (1) and (2).
Read the worked answer
(1) visited (2) has lived
- Blank 1. 'Last summer' is a finished past time, and the trip is over. English uses the simple past for a finished action at a finished time, so visited. Have visited would need a time that includes now (for example 'this year'). Had visited would need another past event to be earlier than.
- Blank 2. 'For twenty years' shows duration, and 'she still lives there' proves the situation continues into the present. Present perfect connects the past to now, so has lived. Lives cannot take 'for twenty years' here, and had lived would tell us she no longer lives there - the opposite of the sentence.
Useful test: cover the blank, find the time expression, and ask 'does this time include now?' If yes, present perfect; if it is a closed past period, simple past.
2. Blank (3): why is 'where' correct and 'which' wrong? Use the structure of the clause, not just the meaning.
Read the worked answer
'where' is correct: a small temple where a famous priest once stayed.
The clause after the blank is 'a famous priest once stayed'. It already has a subject (a famous priest) and a complete verb (stayed), and nothing is missing. Stay is intransitive here, so there is no object to fill.
- where = 'in which / at which'. It adds a place meaning without needing a missing object: the temple where he stayed = the temple at which he stayed.
- which would leave the clause incomplete: the temple which he stayed is wrong because stay needs no object. It only works with a preposition: the temple in which he stayed.
- whose marks possession and needs a noun after it (whose roof), which is not there.
The quick check is: 'Is something missing from the clause?' If nothing is missing and the noun is a place, use where.
3. Blanks (4) and (5): what pattern and what grammar rule decide them? Then show what changes if the aunt had moved to Tokyo last year.
Read the worked answer
(4) so (5) would
- Blank 4 uses the pattern so + adjective + that: so crowded that we could not take pictures. Such needs a noun phrase (such a crowd), and too would need to + verb (too crowded to take pictures), not that.
- Blank 5 is reported speech. The reporting verb said is past, so will shifts back to would: she said she would come back in winter. This is a plan seen from the past, not a promise about now.
Now the change: if the aunt had moved to Tokyo last year, 'she still lives there' would be false, and the present-perfect link to now would disappear. The sentence would become She had lived in the same house for twenty years - past perfect, showing the twenty years ended before another past moment. One fact in the paragraph controls the tense of the whole sentence.