Exercise: Avoiding illogical shifts in verb tense

In each of the following items, choose the verb that fills in the blank correctly.

Click Submit after each question to see feedback and to record your answer. If your instructor has assigned this exercise set, you must answer every question before your answers will be submitted to the gradebook.

1 of 10

Langston Hughes one of the twentieth century’s best-known poets, a man who is famous enough to be featured on a U.S. postage stamp.
Langston Hughes ____ one of the twentieth century’s best-known poets, a man who is famous enough to be featured on a U.S. postage stamp.

2 of 10

Hughes was born in Missouri and his first twelve years in Kansas.

3 of 10

Although Hughes associated today with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, he did not arrive in New York until 1921.

4 of 10

When Hughes got to New York, he nineteen years old.

5 of 10

Hughes quickly a name for himself with his poetry, for he published “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” in a national magazine that same year.

6 of 10

Because he wanted only to write, not to teach or to work in an office, Hughes nearly every kind of writing.

7 of 10

He published short stories, essays, a play, and a novel; he also newspaper columns and children’s books.

8 of 10

During his lifetime, his poetry was very popular, and it still widely read today.

9 of 10

A line from “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” adorns the floor of the Langston Hughes Auditorium, which in Harlem.

10 of 10

Blue stone in the shape of a river decorates the floor of the auditorium, and an urn containing Hughes’s ashes underneath the stone.