Past Perfect Continuous Quiz 7 — Option-by-Option Explanation & Word Meaning (Improve Spoken English With Cambridge-Style Vocabulary Builder)
Past Perfect Continuous Tense — Exercise 7 (Q&A with Solution’s Explanation and Enrich English with Vocabulary like British)
This practice test trains you to recognize and use the Past Perfect Continuous Tense (had + been + verb-ing form) in real contexts. Each question includes the correct past-perfect-continuous form, a short verb definition like in Oxford and Cambridge dictionary (vocabulary builder + POS notes), and detailed one-sentence explanations for every option (A–D) that tell why the option is correct or incorrect and what choosing it would mean. Practice, prepare and improve both English grammar and vocabulary.
English Grammar Definition: Past Perfect Continuous (had + been + verb-ing form)
- Form: had + been + verb-ing form.
- Examples: She had been polishing; They had been coming; Had you been starting it before?
- Main uses:
- To show an action was ongoing up to a past moment or before another past action.
- To emphasise duration or repeated activity before something in the past.
- Signal words: for X time, since, before, by the time, until, prior to, when.
- Negatives / Questions: had not (hadn’t) + been + V-ing; Had + subject + been + V-ing?
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Quiz Instructions
- Read each question and choose the best answer out of four given options.
- On top, header section of the quiz, you will see the “title of the quiz,’ ‘spending-time,’ ‘value of question in points,’ and ‘number of questions.”
- Below on footer, you will see Full Screen mode. As the name suggests, it covers the whole screen. It will save a lot of your time attempting the quiz.
- You can zoom the images given in the questions.
- After submitting the quiz, you can see your score and compare with other users.
- The Full Leaderboard link will take you to a page, where you can see all users attempts.
- Below the quiz box, there are explanation of each options. You can study and try again.
- Best of Luck!
Quiz Question, Answer and Explanation
Note: Do remember in the quiz box above, the questions and options will shuffle, so they won’t have the same sequence like 1, 2, 3, or A, B, C as below.
1. They __ throttling heuristics while traffic patterns shifted for several hours.
A) had been tuning B) tuned C) have tuned D) were tuning
Verb: tune — verb. To adjust parameters for desired behaviour; tuning (noun).
A) Correct: shows iterative adjustments continued over hours and concluded before a later past event (e.g., reset).
B) Wrong: past simple lacks iterative, ongoing nuance.
C) Wrong: present perfect shows present consequences rather than prior continuous processes.
D) Wrong: past continuous can indicate in-progress work but not that it had been occurring before a later past point.
2. By the time the feature flag flipped, devs __ experimenting with A/B funnels.
A) had been funneling B) funneled C) have funneled D) were funneling
Verb: funnel — verb. To guide a subset through a process (marketing/testing); funnel (noun).
A) Correct: expresses ongoing experimentation and traffic shaping up to the flip; implies repeated tests.
B) Wrong: past simple states experiments occurred but not their continuous nature.
C) Wrong: present perfect ties to present; not suitable for the earlier-before relationship.
D) Wrong: past continuous lacks explicit past-before-past placement.
3. Before the deprecation date, we __ decommissioning legacy services in waves.
A) had been decommissioning B) decommissioned C) have decommissioned D) were decommissioning
Verb: decommission — verb. To retire and remove services from production; decommission (noun).
A) Correct: communicates phased, continuous retirement work that happened before the deprecation cut-off.
B) Wrong: past simple would narrate the act but not that it was a sustained multi-wave process.
C) Wrong: present perfect implies present link, not the prior continuous work.
D) Wrong: past continuous indicates ongoing action but not the finished-before relationship.
4. They __ denoising algorithms on the audio pipeline across the morning session.
A) had been training B) trained C) have trained D) were training
Verb: train — verb. To fit a model/algorithm on data; training (noun).
A) Correct: emphasises continuous model training up to a specific past check; signals duration and process.
B) Wrong: past simple reports training happened but not continuous training up to the check.
C) Wrong: present perfect ties to present validation rather than past sequence.
D) Wrong: past continuous could be used but doesn’t mark it as prior to another past event.
5. By the time maintenance ended, ops __ purging stale sessions from the cluster.
A) had been purging B) purged C) have purged D) were purging
Verb: purge — verb. To remove unwanted or outdated items; purge (noun).
A) Correct: indicates repeated removal over time that ended before maintenance completion.
B) Wrong: past simple would only indicate that purging happened, missing the sense of ongoing cleanup.
C) Wrong: present perfect suggests the result matters now, not that it happened prior.
D) Wrong: past continuous lacks the “had been … before” structure.
6. Before the policy change, legal __ auditing vendor contracts for compliance.
A) had been auditing B) audited C) have audited D) were auditing
Verb: audit — verb. To inspect records systematically; audit (noun).
A) Correct: shows a prior continuous compliance check activity that had been ongoing until the policy change.
B) Wrong: past simple lacks the continuous/prior emphasis.
C) Wrong: present perfect is present-focused, not the correct past-before-past nuance.
D) Wrong: past continuous doesn’t place the activity as completed before the policy change.
7. They __ caching strategies iteratively during the traffic surge to keep latency down.
A) had been optimizing B) optimized C) have optimized D) were optimizing
Verb: optimize — verb. To make as effective/functional as possible; optimization (noun).
A) Correct: emphasizes ongoing tuning during the surge, finishing before an identifiable later point.
B) Wrong: past simple states changes took place but not an iterative process over time.
C) Wrong: present perfect ties to current state rather than the earlier continuous effort.
D) Wrong: past continuous might indicate in-progress work but not that it had been happening before another past event.
8. By the time the rollback occurred, developers __ debugging the race condition for hours.
A) had been debugging B) debugged C) have debugged D) were debugging
Verb: debug — verb. To find and fix defects in code; debugging (noun).
A) Correct: conveys prolonged troubleshooting that was taking place up to the rollback — duration and unfinished attempts implied.
B) Wrong: past simple lacks the sense of extended, repeated debugging.
C) Wrong: present perfect implies current relevance rather than prior ongoing activity.
D) Wrong: past continuous shows a momentary in-progress action but does not emphasise it had been ongoing before the rollback.
9. They __ evacuating test traffic while the incident unfolded for the morning.
A) had been draining B) drained C) have drained D) were draining
Verb: drain — verb. To remove traffic/connections from a node before maintenance; draining (noun).
A) Correct: indicates sustained draining activity that had been carried out throughout the morning prior to a later event.
B) Wrong: past simple would not stress duration or that it had been occurring continuously.
C) Wrong: present perfect ties to present-state, not to past-before-past.
D) Wrong: past continuous suggests action in progress but not the completed-before relation.
10. Before releasing the note, they __ encrypting archived logs for compliance.
A) had been encrypting B) encrypted C) have encrypted D) were encrypting
Verb: encrypt — verb. To encode data to prevent unauthorised access; encryption (noun).
A) Correct: signals ongoing encryption work across a time period that finished before release; implies active procedural work.
B) Wrong: past simple states encryption occurred but not the sense of ongoing preparation.
C) Wrong: present perfect focuses on present result, not prior continuity.
D) Wrong: past continuous lacks emphasis that it had been happening before the release.
