The sentence “He _ the bank when police caught him” is correctly completed by:

by

(A) have stole
(B) was stealing
(C) Stole
(D) None of these

🧠 Explanation:

  • The sentence describes an action that was in progress when another action (police caught him) occurred.
  • In such cases, the past continuous tense is used to show the ongoing action: "was stealing."
  • "He was stealing the bank" fits grammatically and logically with the past event of being caught.
  • This tense pairing (past continuous + simple past) is common in storytelling and narration.