Master the 2026 FCE Open Cloze – Unleash Your English Powers Now!

The main idea is that after the phrase can’t stand, the following verb should be in its -ing form. That form acts like a noun and talks about the action in general. So arriving late is what you dislike, hence arriving is used.

Arriving late is natural because it refers to the act of arriving late as something you can’t tolerate. Other forms don’t fit: arrives would need a different subject and tense, arrive is the base form that isn’t used after can’t stand, and arrived is the past form which doesn’t match the sentence structure or timing.