Answer:

To answer this question, we need to understand the tenses and grammatical rules involved. Let's break down the sentence and analyze each part:

Part 1: "While I ___________________ for the English test yesterday"

In this part, we need to find the correct form of the verb that indicates an ongoing action in the past. The past continuous tense (was + verb + ing) is used to describe an action that was happening at a specific point in the past. The options given are:

a) was studying
b) studied
c) was studied
d) none of the above

The correct answer is option 'A' - "was studying" because it correctly uses the past continuous tense to indicate that the action of studying was ongoing at a specific point in the past, which is yesterday.

Part 2: "my brother _____________ fun with his friends."

In this part, we need to find the correct form of the verb that indicates an action in the past. The past continuous tense is not applicable here because the action of having fun is not an ongoing action but a simple past action. The options given are:

a) was having
b) was having
c) had
d) none of the above

The correct answer is option 'A' - "was having" because it correctly uses the past continuous tense to indicate that the action of having fun was happening at the same time as the action of studying, which is indicated by the conjunction "while."

Explanation:

The correct answer to this question is option 'A' - "was studying / was having."

The sentence suggests that the speaker and their brother were engaged in different activities at the same time. The speaker was studying for an English test, indicating an ongoing action in the past, while the brother was having fun with his friends, indicating a simple past action.

Using the past continuous tense ("was studying") emphasizes the ongoing nature of the speaker's activity, while using the past continuous tense for the brother ("was having") emphasizes the simultaneous nature of his activity.

By selecting option 'A', we correctly use the appropriate tenses to convey the intended meaning of the sentence.