For thousands of years, people in the Americas ______ the bottle gourd, a large bitter fruit with a thick rind, to make bottles,
other types of containers, and even musical instruments. Oddly, there is no evidence that any type of bottle gourd is native to
the Western Hemisphere; either the fruit or its seeds must have somehow been carried from Asia or Africa.
to use
have used
having used
using
Choice B is the best answer. The convention being tested is ﬁnite and nonﬁnite verb forms within a sentence. A main clause
requires a ﬁnite verb to perform the action of the subject (in this case, “people in the Americas”), and this choice supplies the
ﬁnite past perfect tense verb “have used” to indicate what people in the Americas used the gourd for. 
Choice A is incorrect because the nonﬁnite to-inﬁnitive “to use” doesn’t supply the main clause with a ﬁnite verb. Choice C is
incorrect because the nonﬁnite participle “having used” doesn’t supply the main clause with a ﬁnite verb. Choice D is
incorrect because the nonﬁnite participle “using” doesn’t supply the main clause with a ﬁnite verb.