Question

Fill in the blanks with the most appropriate words.
Look! There ____ a man sitting at the first table near the door. He ___ at us.
(a)was/looks
(b)had been/ looked
(c)were/ had looked
(d)is/ is looking
(e)is/ was looking

Answer 1

Hint: Use the present continuous tense to indicate an action that is taking place at the moment of speaking. It can also be used to denote an action that will commence in the future.

Complete answer: Let us look at the structure and usage of present continuous tense-
Structure- Subject + is/am/are + ing form of the verb + object
Usage- She is cooking food for us. Here, we can understand that X is performing the action of cooking at the moment.
In the given question- We can conclude that there is a man sitting at the first table near the door. He is looking at us.
Here, we have used the present tense to indicate an action that is happening at the moment.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
(a)‘was/looks’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use ‘was’ to indicate an action that is taking place in the present.
(b)‘had been/ looked’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use past perfect tense to indicate an action that is happening at the moment.
(c)‘were/ had looked’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use simple past tense to indicate an action taking place at the moment.
(d)‘is/ is looking’ is the correct option because we use the present continuous tense to denote an action that is happening at the time of speaking.
(e)‘is/ was looking’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use the past continuous tense to indicate an action taking place at the present.
The correct answer is Option ‘d’.

Note: Keep in mind, we tend to use the present tense with exclamatory sentences and words. Also, present continuous tense is also known as the present progressive tense.