Had the maritime shipping route been monitored more rigorously, the smuggling vessel ______ intercepted before reaching territorial waters.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: D. would have been
- Step 1: An inverted third conditional ('Had... been monitored') expresses an unreal condition in the past. The main clause requires the perfect conditional passive: 'would have been + past participle'. Answer: would have been. Why not the others: "will have been successfully intercepted" uses future perfect indicative, which is ungrammatical in counterfactual past result clauses; "would be being" uses present conditional continuous, which cannot denote completed historical interception; "had been fully" uses past perfect indicative, which belongs in conditional clauses rather than main results.
Practise more Advanced Inversion and Subjunctive Mood.
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More Advanced Inversion and Subjunctive Mood questions
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