Sentence improvement: inversion after “No sooner … than …” in the past Original sentence: "No sooner do the bells ring than the curtain rose." Select the option that corrects the tense and inversion.

Concept
The correlative structure is No sooner + auxiliary + subject + base verb … than + simple past. For a past event: "No sooner did the bells ring than the curtain rose."

Option analysis
did the bells ring — correct inversion and number agreement (bells). ✅did the bell ring — singular "bell" mismatches "bells".had the bell rang / had the bell rung — past perfect is not idiomatic here; also "rang" after "had" is wrong form.

Final Answer
No sooner did the bells ring than the curtain rose.