Question

Fill in the blank with appropriate verb tense-
When Jane had seen the elephants, she ____ to see the giraffes. (want)
a- wants
b- wanted
c- would have wanted
d- none of the above

Answer 1

Hint: Tenses are used to indicate the time with reference to the moment of speaking or performing an action. We can see the use of past perfect tense in the main clause, ‘had seen the elephants’.

Complete answer:
As given in the hint, the past perfect tense is used to express an action that took place before another action in the past.
In the given question- The use of ‘past perfect tense’ in the main clause suggests the use of ‘simple past tense’ in the subordinate or dependent clause.
Now, in the given question- We know that when Jane had seen the elephants, she wanted to see the giraffes. Here, the action of seeing the elephants was performed before the action of seeing the giraffes.
Let’s examine the given options-
Option a- ‘wants’ is an incorrect option, because it has been given in the simple present tense form.
Option b- ‘wanted’ is the correct option, because it has been given in the simple past tense form of the verb.
Option c- ‘would have wanted’ is an incorrect option, because it has been given in the future perfect tense form of the verb.
So, the correct answer is “Option b”.

Note:
We use the simple past tense to indicate an action that began and ended in the past itself. Example- I danced last night. Here, we can comprehend that ‘X’ began and ended the action of dancing in the past itself.