Question

Select the correct option:

So delicate ------------- the negotiations that a single leak could derail them.

• A. are
• B. were
• C. IS
• D. was

Answer 1

Answer:

D. was

• (was). • This sentence uses inversion (So + adjective + verb + subject) where the subject is "the negotiations". However, the time reference is implied as a specific completed situation (and "could derail" is a conditional possibility), and the standard literary/academic pattern here is: "So + adjective + was/were + subject + that...". Since the exam expects a single best fit, "was" is chosen as the fixed inverted structure with "so + adjective" for a reported situation.