Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option.
They discovered that the files ____ stolen while they were the other room.
The past perfect tense is used to show that an action took
place once or many times before another point in the past. It is formed
using had + past participle. It expresses the idea that something occurred
before another action in the past or that something happened before a specific
time in the past. “Had been” in option C agrees with the conditions and
is the correct answer in the given context.
“Is” in option A indicates the simple present tense and does not concur with
the given context.
“Will be” in option B indicates something that will be happening in the future
and is future continuous tense. This is incorrect.
“Was been” in option D is grammatically incorrect.
Thus, option C is correct.