In the question below choose the word(s) or phrase which best fills the gap:

We later on discovered that some members .... another meeting before the one advertised.

  • A were holding
  • B have held
  • C have been holding
  • D had held

The correct answer is D. had held

The verb to hold means to conduct or organize a meeting or an event.

The verb has different forms depending on the tense and aspect of the sentence.

The past tense form of hold is held, and the past participle form of hold is also held. The past tense is used to describe actions that happened in the past and are finished.

The past participle is used to form other tenses, such as the present perfect, the past perfect, and the present or past continuous.

In the sentence, the discovery happened in the past, and the other meeting also happened in the past before the discovery. Therefore, the correct tense to use is the past perfect, which is formed by using had and the past participle of the verb. The past perfect is used to describe an action that happened before another action in the past.

Therefore, the correct way to express that some members conducted another meeting before the one advertised is to use had held, which is the past perfect form of hold.

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