Brenda, as well as her brothers, watched/watches television until it is time for dinner.
What is the correct answer?I’m confused.
English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this communityBrenda, as well as her brothers, watched/watches television until it is time for dinner.
What is the correct answer?I’m confused.
Repetitive action that continues into the present and is expected to continue for some time into the future is indicated by the present tense.
I drive to work on route 65
They go out to eat every Wednesday evening
The school bus drops the kids off at the corner at about twenty to four.
However, the only clue in the sentence that this is repetitive action is the tense of the verb in the subordinate clause so the exercise does not really teach much.
Watched is past-tense (it happened), and watches is present-tense (it is happening).
The clue here is in "until it is time for dinner"
If you were to say "Brenda watched television until it is time for dinner", you are mixing the tenses. "Watched" is past-tense, but "is" is present tense.
For this reason, the correct answer is "watches". "Brenda watches television until it is time for dinner"