Fill in the blank with the correct form of future tense of the verb given in the bracket.
If you go to school late, the teacher ___________ (punish) you.
a) Will punish
b) punish
c) punishing
d) will have punished

Hint: Verbs take up different forms when in different situations and different times of action or retention of the action for a certain time. Such forms are referred to as tenses. Tenses are of various types, the three main types are present tense, past tense and future tense. They have further subdivisions to divide the type of tenses based on the manner in which the action occurs.

Complete answer:
Here, the sentence tells us about how the teacher would respond if the student arrives late to his / her class. Since, it is a hypothetical situation with “if”, the tense that would be apt in the sentence is the future tense.
Now, looking at the options given above,
a) Will punish: This is the correct form of the future form of the verb punish that is to be used. Future tense is used to describe an event that would take place at a later time or those which have the probability to take place in the future.

b) Punish: it is the form of the verb in present tense. The above sentence describes an event that might happen when a certain action is done, that is, something that has a probability to occur in the future. This is not applicable for the sentence given.

c) Punishing: the action is not continuous. Hence this form of the verb is wrong. The sentence does not speak of an action that is taking place currently.
d) Will have punished: will not make any sense in the question because it is used in future perfect tense. This option refers to an action that may continue to take place beyond a specific time in the future.
Hence, Option a, is the correct answer to the above question.

Note:
You might get confused with Option a and Option d. The former refers to simple future tense while the latter depicts future perfect tense. For instance,
The teacher will punish you if you don’t complete your work.
The teacher will have punished you, had she noticed your behavior.