Choose the correct word from the options below to fill in the blank. By the time Mei Ling arrived at the hawker centre, her friends _______ already ordered their food and were waiting for her at the corner table.
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Worked Solution
Step 1: Identify the tense context. The sentence contains the phrase "By the time Mei Ling arrived" — 'arrived' is simple past. An action completed BEFORE another past action requires the past perfect.
Step 2: Form the past perfect. Past perfect = had + past participle. The past participle of 'order' is 'ordered', so the blank needs 'had'.
Step 3: Check subject-verb agreement. Past perfect uses 'had' for ALL subjects (I/you/he/she/we/they), so 'had' is correct regardless of the plural subject 'friends'.
Answer: had.
Correct answer: had
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