Had been ing vs have been ing

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

it opened its gates to the public in 1847 and it _____ ever since. Today, the zoo is almost closed down because the number of visitors has fallen dramatically.

Hello guys tonight i was solving a close test and i encountered with 2 different option one of them is “had been growing” and the other is “have been growing” the answer key says it is “has been growing” but i insist myself that it is “had been growing” if it was have been the zoo would have continue to grow but it is about to be closed due low visitors i usually can’t say which one is which when it comes to this tense can u explain why it is “have been ing” in here

2 Likes
2

The only correct option here is ‘has been growing’ because the process of growing started in the past and has been continuing up until the point of speaking. Since the subject is ‘the zoo’ you need ‘has’ (third person singular).

2 Likes