A contraction is a shortened form of a word. Only one of the words you’ve underlined is a contraction (haven’t). Contractions are words like: didn’t, couldn’t, hadn’t, I’m, I’ve, etc.
A verb phrase consists of a ‘helping’ verb which comes before the main verb. Helping verbs include words like is, are, were, was, be, been, have, had, do, did, can, could, will, would, etc.
So the verb phrase for question 4 would be ‘They had feared’ or ‘They’d feared’ - ‘had’ is the helping verb, which comes before ‘feared’, the main verb.
<u>Government officials downplayed the severity of the crimes committed.</u>
<u>Explanation:</u>
Remember, it was a question asked by a journalist to a US state department press conference in which the US spokeswoman Christine Shelley avoids applying the term "genocide" to the what was happening in <em>Rwanda</em>. Despite the fact that there had been an ethic cleansing of the Tutsi tribe, with more thousands of dead bodies on the streets. Thus, government officials initially showed a lack of admittance to the severity of what was happening in Rwanda.
<u>W</u><u>e</u><u>l</u><u>l</u><u> </u><u>i</u><u>n short, your thesis must address the comparison. 2) Your thesis (and essay) should stay within the parameters of the question or prompt. An essay on the Columbian exchange should not deal with the Swahili Coast of Africa . 3) Next, your thesis should state an opinion.</u>