|Question 21Verbal

Source Texts

Text
The present-day city of Yoshkar-Ola, Russia, was the capital of the Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, one of many nominally autonomous republics within the Soviet Union. Each of these republics        established along ethnolinguistic lines: most residents of the Mari Republic spoke Mari, for example.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
have been
A
are
B
were
C
was
D