Final answer:
The sentence 'María worked in a restaurant' is translated to Spanish in the preterite tense as 'María trabajó en un restaurante,' which indicates a completed action over a specific period of time in the past.
Step-by-step explanation:
To translate the sentence 'María worked in a restaurant' using either the preterite or imperfect tense in Spanish, considering it was for a period of time, the correct translation would be: 'María trabajó en un restaurante.' This uses the preterite tense, which is typically used to describe actions that were completed in the past over a specific period of time.
The correct translation for the sentence 'María worked in a restaurant for a period of time' in Spanish would be 'María trabajaba en un restaurante por un tiempo.' In this case, the imperfect tense 'trabajaba' is used to indicate a past action that was ongoing or repeated over a period of time.
The preterite tense 'trabajó' can also be used if the action of working in a restaurant was completed in the past without any indication of duration.