(1) On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (2) It was one of the first missions that succeeded in launching humans to the surface of the Moon. (3) The hole world prayed as astronauts began their descent to the Moon's surface. (4) On 20 July 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar module pilot Alvin "Buzz" Aldrin landed on the Moon. (5) More than half a billion people watch as Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on the surface of the Moon. What change, if any, should be made in sentence 5? A. Make no change. B. Change watch to watched. C. Change than to then. D. Add a comma after people.

The change that should be made is:

B. Change watch to watched.

Explanation:

In a text, there should be consistency when it comes to verb tenses. If you are narrating an event that happened in the past, verbs in the past tense should be used consistently. That is precisely what happens in the passage we are analyzing here, with only one exception.

In line 5, we have "More than half a billion people watch as Neil Armstrong became the first human being..." The verb "watch" is in the present tense, which makes it stand out when compared to the rest of the passage. As a matter of fact, it sounds strange, a bit off when we read it. Why use the present to refer to a past event that is, in fact, being narrated with past tense verbs? This is the change we should make so that this sentence will be consistent with the rest of the passage:

(5) More than half a billion people watched as Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on the surface of the Moon.

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explanation: