ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by firemen, who are especially skilled at

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climbing the ladder of success.

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What should replace the underlined portion below, if anything?

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A loud fire truck rushed by the house at midnight, and the whole family awaked.

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Consistency often relies on verb form, so even though all the answer choices here are

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in some form of the past tense, they feature different forms of the verb "awake."

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Our job is to sort through this identity crisis and find the form that fits the sentence.

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We know that (B) is incorrect for sure because "awoken" can't exist without a helping verb

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like "has" or "had."

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We can say, "The dragon had awoken," or "The dragon has awoken," but "The dragon awoken,"

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is gibberish.

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The word "awoken" always needs a little help from its friends.

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(D) isn't right because the helping verb "was" requires "awaking," the participle form of the verb.

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"Was" and "awoke" don't make any sense together, at least, that's what their therapist told them.

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(A) is incorrect because "awaked" is antiquated,

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meaning that it's not a commonly used word anymore.

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We've tried to make it popular again, but it feels like an uphill battle.

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Sometimes you just can't fight the irresistible tide of public opinion.

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So C has to be our correct answer.

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"Awoke" is in the past tense and is consistent with the past tense verb "rushed," which appears

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in the first part of the sentence.

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Sure, "awaked" sounds more fun, but we wouldn't suggest testing the ire of those ACT test administrators.

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You don't want to wake a sleeping dragon.

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