Every weekday morning at precisely 7:15, thousands of commuters crowd into Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Racing to...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• Every weekday morning at precisely 7:15,
  • thousands of commuters
    • crowd into Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

• Racing to catch their trains to suburban destinations,
  • they
    • [?] through the station's marble corridors,
      • creating a surge of movement
        • that transforms the historic building into a river of rushing humanity.

• [?] = had streamed / stream / were streaming / streamed

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

The first sentence tells us:

• Every weekday morning at precisely 7:15
  • This sets up a time frame - something that happens regularly, on a repeating schedule

• Thousands of commuters crowd into Grand Central Terminal
  • This describes what happens during that regular morning time
  • 'Crowd' tells us they pack into the station

Now here's where we need to fill in the blank in the second sentence:

• 'Racing to catch their trains to suburban destinations, they _____ through the station's marble corridors'

Let's look at our choices. They're asking us to decide on the verb tense:

• had streamed (past perfect)
• stream (simple present)
• were streaming (past progressive)
• streamed (simple past)

What do we know so far that helps us decide?

• The first sentence uses 'crowd' - that's present tense
  • It's describing what happens 'every weekday morning'
  • This is a habitual action, something that happens repeatedly

• The blank continues describing these same commuters
  • What they do during this same regular morning routine
  • 'They' refers to the commuters

So we need present tense to match 'crowd' and to maintain the description of habitual action: stream is the correct form.

Now let's read the rest to see the complete picture:

• 'creating a surge of movement that transforms the historic building into a river of rushing humanity'
  • Notice 'transforms' is also present tense
  • The whole passage describes what happens regularly every morning
  • All the main verbs are in present tense

What do we notice about the verb tenses here?

• The passage describes a habitual, repeated action
  • Something that happens 'every weekday morning'

• When we describe habitual actions, we use present tense
  • 'crowd' (present) - what the commuters do
  • 'stream' (present) - how they move
  • 'transforms' (present) - what effect this creates

The answer is B: stream.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Present Tense for Habitual Actions

When describing actions that occur regularly or repeatedly, we use simple present tense. Time markers like 'every day,' 'always,' 'each morning,' or 'every weekday' signal habitual actions that require present tense. All verbs describing these regular actions should maintain present tense for consistency.

Pattern for habitual actions:

• Time marker: Every weekend
• Action in present tense: my family visits the park
• NOT: my family visited the park (sounds like it happened once)
• NOT: my family had visited the park (sounds like past action before another past action)

• Time marker: Each semester
• Action in present tense: students register for new courses
• All verbs describing what happens each semester should be present tense

In this question:

• Time marker: 'Every weekday morning at precisely 7:15'
• Habitual actions in present tense:
  • commuters 'crowd' into the terminal
  • they 'stream' through the corridors
  • movement 'transforms' the building

The present tense throughout tells us this is something that happens repeatedly, not a one-time past event.