These questions drop two or three different verbs into one gap — verbs that share a base, or that happen to look alike in one form. The gap tests whether you can tell which verb the sentence is actually about, and only then which slot the gap is.
Decide the verb before you decide the form
Two tests settle the verb. The object test asks whether anybody puts, sets or pushes something: if a direct object follows the gap, the sentence wants the object-taking verb; if the subject simply moves, rests or climbs by itself and nothing follows, it wants the objectless one. That is the difference between putting a folder down on a desk and stretching out flat on the floor. Where both verbs of a pair take an object, only the meaning test separates them.
The meaning test settles the pairs that differ by sense rather than by object. Careful English keeps hanged for putting a person to death and hung for everything else that is suspended. The participle borne covers carrying, enduring and absorbing an expense, while born belongs only to the passive of the birth sense. A form that fits the wrong sense stays wrong however familiar it looks in the gap.
Only once the verb is fixed does its form follow, and the slot decides which one. A finished event with no auxiliary takes the past simple, the second form. After have, has or had, the past participle, the third form, is required. The base form marks no tense at all, so it fills neither slot, and a participle cannot stand on its own as a past tense.
| Verb and sense | Base, past simple, participle | What the sentence shows |
|---|---|---|
| lie — be flat, rest somewhere | lie — lay — lain | nothing is placed; the subject rests |
| lay — put something down | lay — laid — laid | a direct object is placed |
| lie — tell an untruth | lie — lied — lied | the sentence is about honesty |
| rise — go up by itself | rise — rose — risen | no object; it climbs on its own |
| raise — put something up | raise — raised — raised | somebody puts the object up |
| fall — come down | fall — fell — fallen | nothing is acted on |
| fell — cut something down | fell — felled — felled | a tree is the object |
| hang — suspend | hang — hung — hung | a picture, a coat, a line of washing |
| hang — put a person to death | hang — hanged — hanged | an execution, active or passive |
| find — come across | find — found — found | the thing already existed |
| found — establish | found — founded — founded | it is brought into being |
| bear — carry, endure, absorb | bear — bore — borne | born is for the birth sense alone |
Where the marks are lost
- Reaching for the object-taking verb when nothing is being placed. Somebody settling down for a nap, or the sun coming up over a harbour, acts on no object, so the placing verb and the lifting verb are both out.
- Using the objectless verb with an object right after it. A charity bringing in money, or a company putting its own prices up, acts on something, and a verb for a thing going up by itself can govern no object — not in the past simple, not after have.
- Answering with a form that belongs to a third verb sharing the base. A cat resting is not telling untruths, snow coming down is not being cut down, and coming across a thing is not establishing one.
- Treating hanged and hung as free variants. The execution sense keeps hanged even in the passive; everyday suspension keeps hung. The wrong options swap them in both directions, and the swap looks harmless because both forms are real.
- Filling a perfect construction with a past simple, or leaving a participle without an auxiliary. After had a second form is not available however natural it sounds, and a participle alone reports no finished event.
- Offering the base form. A dictionary headword marks no tense, so it is neither a past simple nor a participle; it is on the list because it looks like the verb you had in mind. Watch one twist: a past simple of one verb can be spelled exactly like the base form of its neighbour — the lie and lay rows of the table show the collision.
Try it
The pilot ____ the supply plane over the mountains twice a week that winter.
- fled
- flown
- flew
- flowed
Complete the sentence with the correct form of the verb in brackets: "He ____ (wind) the old clock every Sunday evening until it finally stopped."
Select every form below that can be the past simple of shine in the sense of giving out light.
- shine
- shined
- shone