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Complete the roommate's apologetic text message about the kitchen explosion by choosing the correct verb forms.
I am so sorry! The kitchen was a total disaster zone when you arrived because I __________________________ to bake a surprise birthday cake for three hours! I looked like a ghost because flour ___________________________ out of the broken electric mixer all afternoon.
The correct answers are had been trying and had been blowing.
The Past Perfect Continuous is perfect for explaining the cause of a past situation or showing the visible evidence of a recent past activity.
Because the kitchen "was" (past) a disaster and the speaker "looked" (past) like a ghost, we need the past perfect continuous to describe the messy, ongoing actions that caused those past results!