Last July our class visited an old lighthouse on the coast. The lighthouse is said to have been built in 1850, and a guide named Mr Ivanov showed us around. In the workshop at the bottom we watched him repair a small lamp. Then we began to climb the tower. The more steps we climbed, the slower we walked, and the stairs were so narrow that two people could not pass each other. Hardly had we reached the top when it began to rain. If we had known about the storm, we would have stayed at home, but nobody had checked the weather forecast. Mr Ivanov let us ring the old bell, and after that we went down safely.
Which sentence has the same meaning as "Hardly had we reached the top when it began to rain"?
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Верный ответ
- DAs soon as we reached the top, it began to rain.
Разбор
"Hardly had ... when" is an inverted construction that shows that one action followed another immediately. The first action is reaching the top, and the second is the beginning of the rain. So it means "As soon as we reached the top, it began to rain." In the other sentences the order of events is reversed, or the relation between them is wrong.