An online test says A is correct for (29). Is it correct? If yes, why not D?

None of these answers are correct, and these sentences are off regardless. There are multiple incorrect words in these sentences, and there should be several more commas.

The whole thing is bad English. Find a better teacher.

the entire sentence is wrong actually, "I watched through the window the airport with the runway---" is wrong. It should've said "**I watched through the window as the airport and runway became smaller as the plane gained altitude**"

None of those are right its "became"

I don't know why people have a problem with this. It seems entirely correct to me. It's rather stilted and awkward, perhaps, but it's not wrong.

This whole problem is really badly written. If this is a course you’re taking voluntarily, you should drop it and find an instructor who is a native speaker. D is not correct though - “were” is plural and “the airport” is singular.

This may help. Keep in mind that the gramatical structure is either to watch sb/sthg do or doing sthg. https://www.italki.com/en/post/tsrF9Pa8WVVEMNIS6k0rJt

I suffer from Dyslexia and to me the whole paragraph is badly written. The sentence in question seems to have key words missing. I'm guessing your teacher's first language isn't English. i would find a different teacher.

It's a badly written question. Find a better tutorial.

find a new teacher.

That sentence is just wrong. It makes no sense

It should read “I watched through the window as the airport became smaller as the plane gained altitude”. So whoever wrote the sentence to start with got it wrong.

What a weird sentence

I think become sounds more natural fr

Ооо, це ще зі ЗНО, з якогось 2018, чи що. Аж школу пригадав, як тоді готувався по цьому

I was becoming stronger from going to the gym everyday. I had become a calmer person after I meditated. These chips were becoming stale. I had to become stronger than my opponent.

Wow

Lots of people are telling you that A is incorrect, but that's because they aren't parsing the sentence correctly - which is understandable as it's awkward phrasing. The key to understanding it is to realise that it's built from "I watched the airport become smaller with altitude," which is a phrase most natives would agree is correct. Starting from that, you then change "the airport" to "the airport with the runway," though this is a bit weird as it kind of implies there is another airport nearby that doesn't have a runway. Then you can change "I watched" to "I watched through the window" - though you should note that a better word order here would be "I watched the airport [with the runway] become smaller through the window". If you want to keep the start the same, then "I watched through the window as the airport became smaller" is better (and is the most natural phrasing of the three options).

The rest of the sentence has incorrect grammar, so there can't really be a correct answer.

Yes it's a badly written test, but no one is answering your question here. The sentence is unnatural and convoluted, but not technically grammatically incorrect. To simplify, forget about "through the window", "with the runway", and "as the plane gained altitude". These are just prepositional phrases that give you more information about the scene but do not change the base structure of the sentence. You are left with the base sentence of "I watched the airport ____ smaller." Subject: I Verb: watched Object: the airport ____ smaller The object of the sentence is not simply *the airport*. The object is *the sight* of the airport growing farther away. So first of all, "airport" is singular and "were becoming" is plural, so they do not agree. But the singular "was becoming" would not work either. If you were simply saying "The airport was becoming smaller." as a complete sentence, that would be fine. But when a phrase like this is the *object* in a sentence, and when the sentence is about something that was **experienced or observed in real time**, you always have to use **the present tense verb** or **the infinitive verb**. So correct is "I watched the airport **become** smaller." Other examples: - I watched my mother cook dinner. - After apologizing, he felt the tension ease. - I heard a car backfire in the middle of the night. The infinitive is also grammatically correct in some instances, but not always interchangeable and may slightly change the meaning: - I watched the airport becoming smaller. - I saw him hiding the money. - She heard the dogs barking outside. - I could smell the cookies baking.

It would be 'was becoming' because the subject is singular. So, that rules 'were becoming' out. That is why A is your best answer.

I watched through the window ***as the airport runway became*** smaller as the plane gained altitude.

the runway ***become*** smaller (definition of the verb - grow to be/happen to e.g. the runway happen to become smaller) I wished the runway ***to*** ***become*** smaller (you are doing something to make it happen rather than it just happening) the runway ***had become*** smaller since I last looked out of the window (tense between two pieces of time it might have become smaller but it specifically HAD become smaller) the runway***S*** ***were becoming*** smaller (plural present tense the dogs were running the dog was running running is the verb rather than become)

The sentence itself is wrong no matter what word you put in there. This test was designed by someone who didn't have adequate English skills.

People are saying the sentence is wrong. It's not wrong just very literary, "become" is definetly the only thing that fits there though.

All four aren't correct, but it's because the question is just very poorly phrased. "I watched through the window **as the airport/runway became** ~~the airport with the runway becoming~~ smaller as the plane gained altitude" "I watched through the window**,** ~~the airport~~ with the runway becoming smaller as the plane gained altitude" Though if I were taking this test, I would answer C or D, since it's possible to phrase this idea using them while still sounding natural.

The easiest way to figure these kinds of problems out is to simplify the sentence as much as you can without losing the basic structure. In this case, it can be simplified to "i watched the airport _______ smaller." In cases where the subject is observing or causing its object doing something, the correct form for the second verb is the infinitive (the "raw" form of a verb) or present participle (ending in -ing) depending on if it is a continuous action. In this case, since we're not describing a continuous action, the correct word is "become." If the simplified form of the sentence was "i watched as the airports _______ smaller" your answer of "were becoming" would be acceptable because "airportss" is plural and the inclusion of "as" makes it past tense, but it would make more sense in this case to use "became" as it's not a continuous action.

A is technically correct, it is the only answer that works grammatically. That said, it is a very unnatural way to say that. Any English speaker would say "becoming" there, or really just say it differently. Using "become" like that is archaic and literary sounding, and a lot of (maybe even most) native English speakers would be pretty unfamiliar with that kind of grammar. 

A is the correct answer - we use the simple past tense to describe a sequence of events. /edit ok nvm I though it's "became" lol

D would be correct if the sentence put airport and runway together to make it a plural statement. I watched through the window as the airport and runway were becoming smaller as the plane gained altitude I don’t particularly like how the original sentence was structured.

1. I don't think the grammar is correct because people are missing the "with" in the sentence 2. Even if the grammar can be considered correct, it's very awkward and is an example of how grammar is not equivalent to good communication. The two ways I would rephrase this sentence: 1. I watched the airport through the window with the runway becoming smaller as the plane gained altitude. 2. Through the window, I watched the the runway become smaller as the plane gained altitude. You could even potentially use "had become" in a sentence like this: I watched the airport through the window; the runway had become smaller as the plane gained altitude. I'm not a grammarian but I would say the the reason "had become" needs to be its own independent clause for clarity is to force simple past tense, where I think the previous two examples I gave were in past perfect tense.

i lurked in the comment section, and pondered through my iphone screen the number of answers to the question on reddit BECOME greater as the day went on. the runway is a part of the airport, just as it’s redundant to say, “i answered this question, with my hand”, opposed to, “i answered this question”. to further clarify, if i had to be more specific with the previous example: “i answered this question, awkwardly, with my hand”, that is SO much more confusing than “i answered this question awkwardly”, that i honestly am not even sure how to punctuate the former. because one the runway is part of the airport and they are the only two things being referred to they can be grammatically treated as one subject. idk the names of all the rules and stuff but i believe this should table least help in practice. source: vibes and possibly witchcraft

Oh no, not the НМТ again!

"Were becoming" is plural. This passage very poorly written. It reads like a child wrote it. The sentence "I watched through the window the airport with the runway become smaller as the plane gained altitude" is actually atrocious and hurt to read.

This is not written in English.

Thank you all for your answers! The sentence was very confusing and I understood it like that: * I watched the airport become smaller. * I watched the airport become smaller as the plane gained attitude. * I watched (the airport with the runway) become smaller as the plane gained attitude. * I (watched through the window) (the airport with the runway) become smaller as the plane gained attitude.

I watched the runway and airport become smaller as we gained altitude. (Looking through the window is inferred). The airport and runway was becoming smaller as our plane gained altitude after takeoff. I looked back through the window and saw the airport becoming smaller. (The runway is part of the airport) All these are mostly correct but your sentence for 29 is not fixable because it uses "the" twice.

This isn’t a good English test. Either a comma would be added after “airport” or “with” changed to “as” to make clear that the airport is a subject and runway is an object, or the “with” would be “and” to make clear that the airport and the runway are one collective subject

Who else would say “became”? Edit: never mind that would need “as”. just read it properly and realised it’s not well written… at all

C is the correct answer, so A would be correct if it was "became" and not "become". But both Became and Had Become are correct. Had Become is past perfect so it works. Notice the words "watched" this is in past tense. However A is wrong because it's "become". This is the base form of a verb and doesn't fit grammatically. D is incorrect because were becoming is plural. The airport is singular. It doesn't agree with the subject. So Had Become would be correct. However became would've been the actual correct answer. So it's secretly E. Became. But the best answer would've been C.

Add some commas and a prepositional phrase for a grammatically sound option E: becoming I watched through the window, the airport, along with the runway, becoming smaller as the plane gained altitude. No current options are correct.

Just reading the complete portions of the text is gunna give me a stroke. Like who the hell says “in the morning of the flight” lmao. I’d say “on the morning of the flight” or better yet “on the day of the flight, I woke up and felt…” because mentioning the specific time of day feels odd when talking about a previous day after the fact. I’m no English professor but i can say no native English speaker actually speaks like this.

О, українець

The whole thing is wrong, from sentences to grammar. Find someone that's a native speaker

> I watched though the window the airport with the runway ___ smaller While "become" is probably technically correct, this sentence is super clunky and is not at all how a native english speaker would say that sentence. It comes across like something Shakespeare or some other figure would speak - formal and clunky to the point of almost being incomprehensible. I had to read the sentence 5 or 6 times before I understood it A native english speaker would say something more like "I watched the airport and runway become smaller through the window". Or "I watched through the window \*as* the airport with the runway \*became* smaller"

yap

A native English speaker might say something even more confusing though. I likely would say that the runway “grew” smaller. Which makes sense to me, but would be baffling to an English language learner. “Become” is unfortunate but the idiomatic expression would be worse.

Am I having a stroke?

Answer is none of the above. It's "becoming"

"A, become" is absolutely the correct answer for question (29). The sentence describes the writer's observation: the airport appearing "...smaller as the plane gained altitude." We need a verb to show the airport's state changing, and "become" does that directly. Tests, especially language tests, sometimes try to be a bit tricky. The available options check understanding of grammar. Present form "become" is needed here, not other tense. It's a linking verb. It connects subject to a phrase which describes it.

It's awkwardly phrased. 'I watched the airport become smaller' is perfectly fine. The additional phrases make the sense of the sentence less clear, but not grammatically wrong. It does not sound like a sentence a native speaker would produce. "Through the window, I watched the airport and its runway become smaller as the plane gained altitude" would be a likely way of phrasing it naturally.

The A is [correct](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/hear-see-etc-object-infinitive-or-ing)

This is just a bad English test tbh. I don't think any native speaker would talk or write like that.

Lots of people are giving answers but no-one has said why D is wrong. The subject here, "the airport with the runway" is singular, and "were becoming" is plural which means it can't be that.