You've all had

[Mid A 15]

a good education so which of the following is correct?



In this experiment,the students studied were stopped several times during the listening test and asked to report what they______during the pause before answering the questions.

A.had just been thinking about
B.have just been thinking about
C.are just thinking about
D.had just thought about


My Charlton fellows ,which one is the right answer?

The "Charlton fellows" are split on this. As a bit of background the questioner is supposedly Chinese and a fan of Zheng Zhi, the captain of the Chinese football team, who plays for Charlton (probably not for much longer!).

[Angela Woodford]

I'd say A - "had just been thinking about"!

Mind you, I could have just been reading a book under the desk during Grammar with Miss Morrison....

[Katharine]

I'd agree with A but .... I was bottom of the form in English and have, on occasion, been pulled up for my poor command of grammar on this forum!

[sejintenej]

I also would go - marginally - for A with D as second choice.

My reason for finding D acceptable is that it would read that the time for thinking about .... is limited to the period of the pause whereas the time under A is more open, possibly starting before the pause and going up to the end of the pause.

B & C are effectively wrong tense

It just goes to show how complicated the language is (a bit like JR's doubling up entendre)

Edited after posting.

Just realised that the entire sentence does not make logical sense.

In this experiment,the students studied were stopped several times during the listening test and asked to report what they______during the pause before answering the questions.

Surely the students were NOT stopped during the listening test. Logically only one person would have been reading out loud (or there would only be one tape being played) so only one person could be stopped. the use of the first plural is therefore illogical. The statement could say that the reading was stopped .......... and the students were asked ........

[midget]

Certainly A

[MarkB]

None of the above. It was a listening test so the question was 'what they had just heard'.

[Jo]

I'd agree with A

[Wuppertal]

A.

I hope so because I'm a linguist!

[Katharine]

What I want to know is why is this thread called YOU've all... not WE have all...., was Mid A 15 not listening in class?

[J.R.]

A

(No 'Double entendre' intended)

[Mid A 15]

What I want to know is why is this thread called YOU've all... not WE have all...., was Mid A 15 not listening in class?

Sadly not always as attentively as I should have done or is it correct to say could have done?

[sejintenej]

None of the above. It was a listening test so the question was 'what they had just heard'.

Sorry to disagree Mark.

Yes, that is one possibility but have you never, during a long and boring discourse allowed your mind to wander to that glamorous blonde across the table, the booze-up tonight, how you are going to pay off your student loan, what a float monotone the reader is using ........?
The question about what they were thinking is possible especially if the invigilator suspects that their minds were not on the subject. How often, in class, were you asked "What did I just say?"

[Ajarn Philip]

A


but conceivably (just about) D if the questioner had some reason to think that the 'thought' was very short and sweet. ('What did you just think?' - grammatically correct, but I can't think of many occasions when it would be more appropriate than 'What were you just thinking?')


But I like a bit of lateral thinking, so the prize should go to MarkB.


BTW, what is the prize?


Another prize will go to anyone who can name the tenses used in the original posting... (you'll have to come to Thailand to collect!)

While we're on the subject, try taking the sentence "What were you thinking?" and put the stress on different words. How many different meanings can you come up with?

[sejintenej]

Another prize will go to anyone who can name the tenses used in the original posting... (you'll have to come to Thailand to collect!)

You;ll pay, of course

While we're on the subject, try taking the sentence "What were you thinking?" and put the stress on different words. How many different meanings can you come up with?

Many years ago we had staying with us a Spanish teacher of English who was undergoing a course in English. For homework she had just such a question and from the sentence she was given we got over 20 different meanings and implications.
I include "implications" because you can stress a phrase to query what is being said or to query it with the implication that the person knows they are mistaken or that they are total fruit and nut cases................ I.m not going to try it with that phrase but at a guess the answer should be between 15 and 25

[Jo]

Another prize will go to anyone who can name the tenses used in the original posting... (you'll have to come to Thailand to collect!)

Oh gosh, I do like a linguistic challenge - but I'm struggling on this one.

A.had just been thinking about - is there such a thing as pluperfect continous?
B.have just been thinking about - past continuous
C.are just thinking about - present continuous
D.had just thought about - pluperfect

Wiki suggests that tenses can be further categorised according to how far into the past we are talking about. So perhaps A is immediate pluperfect? B and D could also be immediate in that case.

Go on then..... what would your answer be?