No sooner had the keynote speaker stepped onto the stage ______ a thunderous round of applause erupted from the audience.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: B. than
- Step 1: Identify correlative pair: 'No sooner... than' is a fixed correlative construction in English.
- Step 2: The clause introduced by 'No sooner had...' must be completed by 'than' (unlike 'hardly... when').
Answer
than.
Why not the others: 'when' pairs with 'hardly' and 'scarcely'; 'then' expresses simple sequential time; 'after' is redundant.
Practise more Advanced English Grammar, Verb Tenses, Conditionals and Sentence Structure.
Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed STEP (Standardized Test of English Proficiency) mock tests.
More Advanced English Grammar, Verb Tenses, Conditionals and Sentence Structure questions
- Neither the project manager nor the civil engineers ______ satisfied with the preliminary soil test results.
- By the time the international flight landed at King Khalid International Airport, the delegation ______ for three hours.
- If the pharmaceutical company ______ the clinical trial protocol earlier, the regulatory approval would have been granted last month.
- Hardly ______ the laboratory building when the fire alarm sounded loudly throughout the campus.
- The university committee recommended that every incoming student ______ a comprehensive mathematics placement examination.
- The new solar energy plant, ______ construction was completed ahead of schedule, will supply electricity to over 50,000 households.