Exercício: para o Vestibular de inglês

Complete the following text with the correct form of the verb:

A long time ago London _____ an important city, but it _____ different from London today. There
_____ not very many big buildings. There _____ a lot of small boats on the river.

A) is, is, are, are
B) was, is, are, are
C) was, was, were, were
D) was, is, were, were
E) had been, is, were, are

London, big buildings, small boats does not refer to things or animals (it)?
- PUC 1997

TESTE DE NÍVEL
Faça um teste de inglês e descubra seu nível em 10 minutos! Este teste foi desenvolvido por professores experientes. O resultado sai na hora e com gabarito. INICIAR TESTE
3 respostas
Ordenar por: Data
diogorenato,

It seems that you already answered the question in bold!
I am not that in favor of people just putting questions like that without trying to answer themselves first because for us to give you the answers would not do any good for your learning process.
Anyway, the two most probably answers are: (c) and (d)
Why is not (d)? Because they are talking to a time in the past tense.

A long time ago London was an important city, <----past tense
but it was different from London today. <----still in the past tense
There were not very many big buildings. <---- continued in the past tense
There were a lot of small boats on the river. <------ to agree it must finish in the past tense since we still talking about the past.
B