Complete the correlative temporal sequence accurately:

Hardly ________ the podium when a technical failure disrupted the digital plenary broadcast.

Answer and explanation

Correct answer: B. had the keynote speaker approached

Answer: had the keynote speaker approached. Why not the others: 'the keynote speaker had approached' fails to invert after sentence-initial 'Hardly'; 'approached the keynote speaker' inverts the main verb without an auxiliary; 'did the keynote speaker approached' improperly combines auxiliary 'did' with past tense 'approached'.
  1. Step 1: Identify the correlative pair: 'Hardly ... when' expresses immediate anteriority (one event occurring instantly before another in the past).
  2. Step 2: Apply the inversion rule: fronting 'Hardly' necessitates past perfect inversion where 'had' precedes the subject 'the keynote speaker', followed by the participle 'approached'.

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