Exercise 2 Read the short extract from the article about Alex Honnold. Then open the brackets and fill in the gaps with the words in the past perfect tense.
#1. Honnold couldn’t use a rope or anything else to help him stick to the slippery stone. The few people who ________ (climb)
#2. Half Dome before _______ (use) ropes,
#3. and it _______ (take) them more than a day to do the climb.
#4. On a bright September morning, Honnold was clinging to the face of Half Dome, less than 100 feet (30 meters) from the top. He _______ (climb) forty-five minutes before he stopped suddenly.
#7. He _______ (not feel) that way two days before when he’d been racing up the same rock with a rope.
#8. That climb _______ (go) well. Today though, Honnold hesitated. He knew that even the slightest doubt could cause a deadly fall, thousands of feet to the valley floor below.
#9. He knew he had to get moving, so he _______ (chalk) his hands, before started climbing again. Within minutes, he was at the top. Bloggers spread the news of Honnold’s two-hour-and-fifty-minute free solo, and climbers were amazed.
#10. On this warm fall day, 23-year-old Alex Honnold had just _____ (set) a new record in one of climbing’s biggest challenges.
