er
16
Decide if the verbs in bold are in the correct
form. Rewrite the incorrect forms.
Psychologists (a) had been interested in discovering
the key to lying for a long time, but it still doesn't
seem easy to work out what makes a good liar. Once,
a psychologist called Richard Wiseman (b) has done
an interesting experiment using television. He
(c) interviewed a famous person called Robin Day
about his favourite film. In the first interview, Day
(d) told Wiseman the truth. He (e) described how he
loved the film Some Like It Hot. In the second interview,
he (f) lied, telling the interviewer how much he liked
Gone with the Wind, even though he really hated it.
When they (g) had been finishing the interviews, they
(h) asked viewers to watch the two interviews and
to decide in which interview Day (i) had been lying.
Almost 30,000 people phoned in to vote, but the votes
were completely divided between the two interviews.
It became clear that viewers (j) were simply guessing.
Then a surprising thing happened. On the same day,
the two interviews (k) appeared on the radio and in a
newspaper. Seventy-three per cent of the radio listeners
correctly (1) guessed when Day (m) was lying, and
so did 64 per cent of the newspaper readers. Other
recent tests (n) have suggested the same conclusion,
that body language and facial expressions give little
indication of people's sincerity. It seems to be more a
question of the words we use.

a) "Had been interested" is in the past perfect, which does not go well with the rest of the sentence that is in the present. The present perfect makes more sense - "have been interested" - and it indicates that this is an action/state that continues in the present moment.

b) The present perfect can be used to indicate past actions, but only when it refers to an unspecified time. In this case, the writer is talking about a specific time when the interviews took place. Thus, instead of "had done", we should use the simple past "did".

c) "Had been finishing" is a past perfect continuous, which indicates a progressive action in the past. But what we need is the simple past, because the action of finishing was over when they asked people to watch them. "Finished" is a better choice.