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Help Detective Vance finish his official report on the bizarre museum heist. Select the correct auxiliary verbs to complete the parallel structures.
The mastermind has finally confessed to the heist, and so _________________________ his two accomplices.
Surprisingly, the museum director didn't suspect the curator, nor _________________________ the security chief.
The stolen diamonds were successfully recovered by our team, but the famous ruby _________________________.
The correct answers are have, did, and was not.
Explanation:
When using ellipsis in coordination, the auxiliary verb in the second clause must logically match the tense and structure of the first clause.
- have: The first clause uses the present perfect (has confessed). The second clause uses inversion with "so" (so have his accomplices). Because "accomplices" is plural, we use have.
- did: The first clause is in the simple past (didn't suspect). The second clause uses inversion with "nor". The matching past tense auxiliary is did (nor did the security chief [suspect]).
- was not: The first clause uses the past simple passive (were recovered). The singular subject "ruby" requires the singular passive auxiliary was not (was not [recovered]).