Select the most appropriate option to fill in the blanks. He had ________ the ________ into smaller clips.

Correct — C. The first blank follows had, and a perfect tense is built with had plus the past participle, so the verb has to be clipped.

The second blank sits between the and into, so it needs a noun, and clipping is a countable noun meaning a piece cut out of something.

Together: He had clipped the clipping into smaller clips → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  clipping, clips — Puts had clipping in the first blank. Had plus an -ing form is not a tense in English, so the sentence collapses before the second blank is even considered.
• (b)
  clips, clipping — Had clips is ungrammatical: after had you need the third form, clipped, not the present-tense clips. The noun in the second blank happens to be right, which is the bait.
• (d)
  clipping, clipped — Reverses both slots. Had clipping is again not a perfect tense, and the clipped leaves the sentence with an adjective where its object noun should be.

Two-blank items like this one test word form, not vocabulary. The same root shows up as a verb, a participle and a noun, and the grammar around each gap decides which form belongs there.

Two signals do all the work. An auxiliary had forces the past participle. An article the forces a noun.

Clip supplies every form the options need — clip, clips, clipped, clipping — so meaning cannot separate them. Only the frame around each blank can.

Key facts

• Had plus a past participle is the past perfect, while had plus an -ing form is not a tense in English.
• An article such as the is followed by a noun or noun phrase, never by a finite verb.
• A clipping is a countable noun meaning a piece cut from something, as in a newspaper clipping.

Common traps

• Reading clipping as a verb and treating had clipping as a past continuous.
• Choosing clips for the second blank because the sentence already ends in clips.

No directly related past PYQ was found.