English Grammar and Usage

This is a conditional statement about an imaginary situation (I would be lying if I said...). In the if-clause with a counterfactual condition, we use 'would + be + -ing' to describe what would be happening. The phrase 'would be telling' correctly expresses the ongoing nature of telling a lie in this hypothetical scenario. Options like 'told' or 'had told' are simple forms that don't capture the continuous aspect of 'telling' in this context.

The action of waiting happened before and continued up to the point when the opportunity arrived. We use the past perfect continuous tense 'had been waiting' to show an action that started in the past and continued up to another point in the past. Simple past 'waited' doesn't convey the duration and ongoing nature of the waiting before this moment. The option 'was waited' is grammatically incorrect as it uses passive voice inappropriately.

This sentence describes a completed action in the past with no connection to the present. The simple past tense 'stole' is the correct form to express this. 'Has stolen' (present perfect) would connect the past to the present, which isn't appropriate here since there's no present relevance mentioned. 'Had stolen' (past perfect) would require another past event to establish a sequence, which isn't present in this standalone sentence.

In time clauses referring to the future, we use the present simple tense, not future forms. The clause 'as soon as he gets a visa' uses present simple 'gets' even though it refers to a future event. 'Will get' is incorrect because we don't use future tenses in time clauses introduced by 'as soon as'. 'Got' (past) and 'had got' (past perfect) place the action in the wrong time frame.

The verb 'mind' is followed by a gerund (-ing form) when making requests. 'Would you mind lending' is the correct structure. We cannot use infinitive 'lend' after 'mind'. 'Is lending', 'was lending', and 'have lent' are all finite verb forms that don't work in this position after 'would you mind'. This is a fixed grammatical pattern for polite requests.

This is reported speech where 'I asked' is past tense, so the reported clause needs to shift back in time. The original question would have been 'Will you permit me?' In reported form, this becomes 'would permit'. 'Permitted' loses the modal meaning, 'was permitted' is passive voice incorrectly used, and 'had permitted' places it too far in the past without the appropriate context.

The action happened in the past, so use simple past tense. 'Stepped' is the correct past form of 'step'. Present continuous (is stepping) would mean the action is happening right now, and past perfect (had stepped) would require another past event to compare to.

'Has taken' (present perfect) indicates an action that happened at an unspecified time before now and has present relevance. 'Taking' is present participle (needs 'is'), 'had been taking' is past perfect continuous (requires a duration context), and 'took' is simple past (less precise without time marker).

The sentence uses passive voice ('was' + past participle). 'Awarded' is the past participle of 'award'. 'Awarding' is present participle, 'being awarded' would need 'is being', and 'been awarded' is incomplete without 'has' or 'had'.