A verb form question with a list of actions tests whether the verbs work together. Find the subject, then read the whole list to see which verbs share it. Compare the verb forms and ask when each activity happens. Verbs in a list usually use the same form and tense unless the text gives a reason for a change. Check whether the words around the blank call for the same timing or a different one.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read from “participants” to the period, and look for how the activities are joined.
- Hint 2
Compare the forms of the verbs before the blank. Do any time words call for the last workshop activity to use a different form?
Step-by-step
Sort the forms and check the list
Step 1Sort the verb forms
The forms have identified and were identifying use helping verbs, so they can be main verbs. A main verb tells what a subject does or is. The -ing form identifying can't be one without a helper. Let's find the subject, participants, and count their main verbs to see what the blank needs.
- Step 2
Check why another main verb can fit
Read to the period: practiced networking skills, wrote elevator pitches, and gives the participants two main verbs. Does the blank need a main verb too? Yes, because and makes it the third item in a list of actions, so the blank needs another main verb for that same subject. identifying can't fill that job without a helper.
- Step 3
Match the list's tense
What tense does the list need? The verbs in practiced networking skills, wrote elevator pitches use the simple past, the plain past form, to tell what happened during the workshop. No wording calls for a change to have identified or were identifying, so the simple past form identified matches this list. Choice C.