Question:
Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option: "No sooner ______ the station than the train departed."
Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option: "No sooner ______ the station than the train departed."
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Always associate the following pairs:
- "No sooner" goes with "than".
- "Hardly Scarcely Barely" goes with "when".
All of these structures trigger subject-verb inversion: "No sooner had we..." or "Hardly had we...".
- "No sooner" goes with "than".
- "Hardly Scarcely Barely" goes with "when".
All of these structures trigger subject-verb inversion: "No sooner had we..." or "Hardly had we...".
Updated On: May 27, 2026
- we reached
- had we reached
- we had reached
- did we reach
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Verified By Collegedunia
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Understanding the Question:
The sentence requires us to fill in the blank following the correlative conjunction phrase "No sooner ... than". We must apply the rules of grammatical inversion.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
- The Inversion Rule: When negative or restrictive expressions like "No sooner", "Hardly", "Scarcely", or "Barely" are placed at the beginning of a sentence for emphasis, they must be followed immediately by an auxiliary verb before the subject. This grammatical structure is known as subject-verb inversion.
- Structure for "No sooner ... than":
The standard correlative structure is:
"No sooner + had + Subject + past participle (V3) + than + Subject + simple past (V2)"
Alternatively, "did" can also be used:
"No sooner + did + Subject + base verb (V1) + than + Subject + simple past (V2)"
Let us test the options against these structures.
- Analysis of Option (B) "had we reached": This perfectly matches the primary inverted structure "had + subject (we) + past participle (reached)". This indicates that the action of reaching the station happened immediately before the train departed. This is the correct option.
- Analysis of Option (D) "did we reach": While "No sooner did we reach" is grammatically possible under inversion rules, standard textbook English and exam boards prioritize the Past Perfect form ("had we reached") when describing two consecutive completed actions in the past. More importantly, when choosing the most appropriate option, the past perfect auxiliary "had" is preferred because it emphasizes the perfective aspect of the first action before the second began.
- Analysis of Options (A) "we reached" and (C) "we had reached": Both options fail to invert the subject "we" and the verb. Thus, they violate the fundamental inversion rule triggered by starting a sentence with "No sooner".
Step 3: Final Answer:
The correct and grammatically accurate option is Option (B).
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