Match the beginning and the endings of the sentences. 1. I had been working hard for months 2. I had...

1. I had been working hard for months before I became ill.
2. I had been speaking for several minutes when I was stopped.
3. I was out of breath because I had been running all the way.
4. We had been standing at the bus stop a long time when the accident happened.
5. The visitors had been sightseeing for an hour by then.

1. c. when the accident happened.
2. e. before i was stopped.
3. a. because I had been running all the way.
4. d. by then
5. b. when i became ill.

To correctly match the beginnings and endings of the sentences based on the context and the use of the past perfect continuous tense, which emphasizes the duration of an action up to a point in the past, we can proceed as follows:

1. I had been working hard for months b. when I became ill.
   This sentence suggests that the speaker's illness was possibly a result of the prolonged period of hard work.

2. I had been speaking for several minutes e. before I was stopped.
   This pairing indicates that the speaker was interrupted after speaking for a while.

3. I was out of breath a. because I had been running all the way.
   This makes logical sense because running all the way would naturally cause someone to be out of breath.

4. We had been standing at the bus stop for a long time d. by then.
   Here, "by then" emphasizes the duration that they had been waiting, which by the context seems long.

5. The visitors had been sightseeing for an hour c. when the accident happened.
   This indicates that the accident occurred after the visitors had already spent an hour sightseeing.

Each of these matches aligns the continuity and causality implied by the use of the tenses and the additional information provided in the endings.