Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
I _____ for my things when I ____ someone call my name.

• A. paid / was hearing
• B. pay / heard
• C. was paying / hear
• D. was paying / heard

Answer 1

The correct option is D was paying / heard

From the sentence, we can understand that there were two actions took place: paying and hearing. Now, we should understand the time at which they happened. The conjunction 'when' denotes the time at which the part following it happened. Thus, we can say that the action after 'when' happened when the action before it was on-going. In other words, the tense of the verb in part before 'when' should be 'past continuous tense'.

So, was paying is the correct answer.

Both the actions took place in past; the action of hearing was completed when the action of paying was going on. So, heard is the correct form of verb in the second blank.

Thus, option D is correct.