All the flights____because of the snowstorm, we had to take the train instead.
A. were canceled B. had been canceled
C. having canceled D. having been canceled
Here is an exam question maded by Chinese education department?I guess. The correct answer is D and I asked one of my American friends,he thought both A and B are making sence.
Best Answer
Background: I am a Chinese student learning English like mad.
First of all, I eliminated both option A & B because there's only one single sentence, so if A or B were used, there needs to be a conjunction after the comma (
...snowstorm, so we...). Therefore the former part of the sentnece must be a dependent clause. A comma should never separate two full sentences.Now look at option C and D. The flights were canceled. They can't cancel themselves, so a passive voice should be used. Thus, "having been canceled" fits best here in the given scenario.
Extras: Why not use "being canceled"? Because event "the flights are canceled" happened before "we have to take the train", and it's a prerequisite of "we take the train". The two things happened one by one, so a perfect tense is used here.