38. Jane .......(read) the newspaper when the phone rang. a. read b. was reading

The correct answer is b. was reading. Explanation: The sentence describes an action in progress in the past that was interrupted by another action. The past continuous tense (was/were + verb-ing) is used for the action in progress, and the past simple tense is used for the interrupting action (the phone rang). So, 'Jane was reading' is the correct choice.