Verbal Ability - Spotting Errors - Discussion

Have/has been used to show that some work has started in past and is going on in present and will continue for some time in future like " I have been working in IBM since June 9,2011."

Had been is also used in the same sense but just to indicate past,or we can say for past we use past perfact here that has been shown by the quarreled i.e. second form of verb. It gives the information about that some work started in past and ended in past. Or to more clearify we can say that when we wanna talk about past in past we use it.

According to the basic rules of tenses we always use a past perfect continuous tense for verbs that were happening in the past and are still happening at the moment at which we describe it.

Now as they were friends until their quarrel and after that their friendship broke so the sentence must take past perfect continuous.

We can take this statement in two ways. One " They have been very close friends until they quarrel " (present perfect) and two " They had been very close friends until they quarrelled " (Past perfect). So the correct answer can be A or D, it depends upon in which way they are thinking the statement.

Eg of have been.

I have been in this college since 2010.
It means I m still in this college.

Above sentence is in past tense means quarrel occurred in past too so there is no point of using have been because now they are not friend instead of have had is used.

For this type of questions always try to guess which comes first and later. I mean the sequence the first takes the past participle and the second takes the simple past just like

"As soon as I left for the railway station, the train had left."

According to me, "have been".

Used in the present perfect continuous tense. So when "have been" used, we use quarelling. As "quarrelled" is used, it indicates past or past perfect. But, According to statement, we use past perfect.

"They were very close friends until they quarrelled".

This is correct because given sentence can neither be present perfect continuous nor past because in the perfect continuous verb is always in its first form +ing.

"Had been" is used to mean that something happened in the past and has already ended. "Have been'" and "has been" are used to mean that something began in the past and has lasted into the present time.

In a sentence we cannot use peresent perfect (have been) with past tense (quarreled). In this sentence quarreled shows past and with past we always use past perfect. Its a grammer rule.

In the above statement " quarrelled " is representing past tense. That's why our statement also represents past tense only. Replacing "have been " to " had been".

Thank you.