{"id":12245,"date":"2016-11-01T09:57:33","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T14:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grockit.com\/blog\/collegeprep\/?p=1692"},"modified":"2020-09-11T20:42:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T20:42:36","slug":"verb-tense-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/act\/verb-tense-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Verb Tense on the ACT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Verb tense is often a simple error to spot on English multiple choice problems, but when it comes to harder problems, you really should know the ins and outs of verb tense.
\nIt\u2019s easy to spot errors like \u201cI will play basketball yesterday.\u201d We know that such a sentence is logically impossible, and to fix it, we simply change the future tense to the past tense: \u201cI played basketball yesterday.\u201d
\nMany problems, however, aren\u2019t so simple. To master these, it\u2019s best to learn the different tenses in English\u2013the ones most often tested on the ACT\u2013and their functions.
\nFirst, let\u2019s take a look at the simple tenses:
\nSimple Present:<\/strong> The man runs. (He\u2019s running right now)
\nSimple Past:<\/strong> The man ran yesterday. (He ran in the past)
\nSimple Future:<\/strong> The man will run tomorrow. (He will run in the future)
\nYou may be thinking \u201cduh,\u201d but it helps to organize your knowledge of tenses\u2013even the easy ones.
\nHere are the perfect tenses. The perfect tenses are a bit more complicated.
\nPresent Perfect:<\/strong> I have practiced, so I am ready for the recital.
\nThe present perfect often indicates something that you have just done, or something that you did in the past and may continue to do or are doing at the moment. Think of this example where we use present perfect vs. past: John (worked \/ has worked) at the coffee shop for three years. Notice that \u201cworked\u201d would tell us that John no longer works at the coffee shop; he\u2019s talking about three years of his life that have already passed. If we use \u201chas worked,\u201d though, it suggests that John has worked at the shop for three years and continues to work there.
\nPast Perfect:<\/strong> I had practiced, so I played well at the recital.
\nThe past perfect is used to indicate an action that occurred before another action in the past. Notice that both the practicing and the recital took place in the past, but we want to communicate the order of events: practicing took place before the recital. Thus, we use the past perfect for the practicing, and the simple past for the \u201cplaying well.\u201d
\nFuture Perfect<\/strong>: I will have practiced, so I will play well in the recital.
\nThe future perfect is used to indicate an action that took place before another action in the future. We know that the practicing and the recital will both take place in the future; I will certainly practice before the recital but haven\u2019t done so yet. This example sentence suggests that I have made a prediction about events in the future. It\u2019s like saying: \u201cDon\u2019t worry about me. By the time the recital comes around, I will have practiced, and I will be great.\u201d
\nNow that we know the tenses, let\u2019s explore what some tense problems might look like.
\nHere\u2019s an example\u00a0to get us started:
\nWithout a doubt, one of the most interesting things about our trip to Paris next May was the change from speaking in English to speaking in French.<\/em>
\nHere, we have to figure out the true tense of the sentence from a tense cue, \u201cOur trip to Paris next May.\u201d If the trip happens next May, then it will take place in the future. Thus, we cannot speak of the trip in past tense with the verb \u201cwas,\u201d so you need to change that \u201cwas\u201d to \u201cwill be.\u201d
\nHere\u2019s another example that tests something different while still testing knowledge of tenses:
\nWhen he claimed that he had spoke to the dignitary, Ken neglected to mention that the correspondence had been conducted chiefly through her secretary.<\/em>
\nThe problem here is not with the kind of tense used, but the improper application of that tense. The author wants to use the past perfect of \u201cspeak,\u201d but says \u201chad spoke\u201d instead of \u201chad spoken.\u201d In all the perfect tenses, we must use the past participle of the word, which does not always look like the past tense of a word. The past participle of speak is \u201cspoken.\u201d The past participle of drink is \u201cdrunk.\u201d The past participle of swim is \u201cswum.\u201d If any of these surprise you, review a list of irregular English verbs to fortify yourself against these nitpicky tense questions.
\n<\/span>
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Verb tense is often a simple error to spot on English multiple choice problems, but when it comes to harder problems, you really should know the ins and outs of verb tense. It\u2019s easy to spot errors like \u201cI will play basketball yesterday.\u201d We know that such a sentence is logically impossible, and to fix […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[60,59],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12245"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36221,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245\/revisions\/36221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}