3

Last week I had a test and there was a confusing question: we had to put the bare verb in the brackets into the correct forms and that question was: ""When I woke up last night, it .... (rain) heavily." I filled in the gap with "had rained" but the correct answer was "was raining". Can anyone explain why I was wrong? Thank you!

Improve this question
3
  • 3
    Your answer was not incorrect.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 1:44
  • Thanks for your answer! By the way, I think that the question did not give us enough infomation about the action "woke up" and was quite ambiguous, so both of the answers are acceptable. Am I right?
    – Kate Ng
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 1:54
  • Yes, it was ambiguous.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 2:00

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

When I woke up last night, it was raining heavily.

This means that it was still raining (drip, drip, drip) when you woke up. You could hear the rainfall outside the window.

When I woke up last night, it had rained heavily.

This means that it rained for some time, and then it stopped, and it wasn't raining for some time, and then you woke up.

Neither answer is incorrect, even though the second one sounds a bit awkward without a suitable context.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    The second would seem more normal if it continued "... and the streets were still wet", for instance.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 2:01
1

When I woke up last night, it ________ heavily. (rain)

a. was raining

b. rained

c. had rained

Grammatically speaking, I think all three are possible.

a. means that it had started raining before I woke up, and it continued raining after I woke up.

b. could mean the same as a., but it would normally mean that it started raining right after I woke up.

c. means that it had started and stopped raining before I woke up. Without further context, though, c. could sound weird because normally you wouldn't know whether it had rained heavily or not since it had only rained while you were sleeping.

Improve this answer
6
  • Wow what a detailed answer! Thank you so much!
    – Kate Ng
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 3:08
  • @KateNg: There are two arrows to the left of the answer. If you like the answer, you might as well press the arrow pointing upward, which would award the answerer with points.
    – Ricky
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 5:22
  • @Ricky _ She doesn't have that privilege yet which requires 15 reputations, but she can accept an answer as the OP.
    – Learning Equals Success
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 8:52
  • @TasneemZH: Give her a plus-one, then!
    – Ricky
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 14:01
  • @Ricky _ I don't have any reason and/or motive to do that.
    – Learning Equals Success
    Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 17:56

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .