Were you a bird, you ___________________ in the sky. A. would fly B. shall fly C. should fly D. shall have flown

GATE 2013 · General Aptitude · Tenses · medium

Answer: A. would fly

1. Identify the conditional type: 'Were you a bird' uses the past subjunctive 'were' with subject-verb inversion (instead of 'If you were a bird'). This marks a second conditional — unreal or hypothetical present.
2. Apply the second conditional rule: Second conditional structure: [If + past subjunctive], [would + base verb]. So: 'Were you a bird, you WOULD FLY in the sky.'
3. Confirm the answer: A. would fly is the correct fill for this unreal conditional sentence.