Tense</p>
<p>Before I explain each tense’s general uses, here are the conjugations of to eat in the first person for each tense:
Simple present: I eat
Present progressive: I am eating
Present perfect: I have eaten
Present perfect progressive: I have been eating</p>
<p>Simple past: I ate
Past progressive: I was eating
Past perfect: I had eaten
Past perfect progressive: I had been eating</p>
<p>Simple future: I will eat
Future progressive: I will be eating
Future perfect: I will have eaten
Future perfect progressive: I will have been eating</p>
<p>Present Tenses</p>
<p>Simple present: The simple present tense is used to refer to customary actions (e.g., She travels for work) or being (e.g., My pet is a dog), and it can be used in special future situations (e.g., The test is tomorrow or The election is on Tuesday). (The simple future tense can also be employed for that last use, as in The test will be tomorrow).</p>
<p>Present progressive: The present progressive tense can emphasize the ongoing nature of an action (e.g., I am walking instead of the more general I walk). Like the simple present tense, it can refer to future situations (e.g., He is moving next year). </p>
<p>Present perfect: The present perfect tense is used when a past action affects the present. since is often a trigger for the present perfect tense. The present perfect tense can indicate that an action occurs in the present as well as in the past (e.g., Since birth, I have lived here). Also, it can refer to a completed action if the writer or speaker wishes to emphasize the past action’s effect on the present (e.g., I have just completed my book).</p>
<p>Present perfect progressive: The present perfect progressive tense is similar to the present perfect tense, except the former cannot refer to a completed action and emphasizes the continuous nature of the action.</p>
<p>Past Tense</p>
<p>Simple past: The simple past tense refers to an action completed in the past. </p>
<p>Past progressive: The past progressive emphasizes the ongoing nature of an action completed in the past. It can also be used when we are talking about two concurrent actions in the past (e.g., As my dog was watching me, I was eating my food) or an interrupted action (e.g., I was eating when my dog grabbed my bowl).</p>
<p>Past perfect: The past perfect tense is used to refer a past action that occurred before another referenced past action. by often signals the past perfect tense (e.g., By the time we arrived, Bob had left). When a prepositional phrase already indicates that an action came before another action, the simple past may be used instead of the past perfect (e.g., Before we left, I went to the bathroom) or Before we left, I had gone to the bathroom).</p>
<p>Past perfect progressive: The past perfect progressive tense functions similarly to the past perfect tense but emphasizes the continuous nature of an action.</p>
<p>Future Tenses</p>
<p>Simple future: The simple future tense refers to actions to be completed in the future.</p>
<p>Future progressive: The future progressive tense is used to refer to actions that will be in progress at a future time (I will be eating lunch at noon).</p>
<p>Future perfect: The future perfect tense is used to indicate that an action will be completed by a particular time in the future (e.g., I will have finished my homework by the time you arrive).</p>
<p>Future perfect progressive: The future perfect progressive tense functions similarly to the future progressive tense but emphasizes that the action has been occurring prior to the specified time (e.g., I will have been working on it).</p>
<p>A specific verb error: to lay and to lie: Using these two verbs correctly can be difficult, so it is worth going through their basic forms.</p>
<ul>
<li>to lay is a transitive verb; that is, it takes an object (e.g., I want to lay this down). Its three basic forms:</li>
</ul>
<p>Base form: lay (For example: I always lay the paper down first.)
Simple past: laid (For example: Yesterday, I laid the rug on the ground)
Past participle: laid (For example: I have/had always laid the paper down first.)</p>
<ul>
<li>to lie is an intransitive verb; that is, it does not take an object (e.g., I want to lie down). Its three basic forms:</li>
</ul>
<p>Base form: lie (For example: I always lie down.)
Simple past: lay (For example: Yesterday, I lay down on the rug)
Past participle: lain (For example: I have/had always lain down on the paper.)</p>
<p>(The next section discusses the past participle.)</p>
<p>Recognizing past participle errors: The past participle is used along with a conjugated form of to have in forming the perfect tenses. For example:
He has eaten the sandwich.
eaten is the past participle there. For some verbs, though, the past participle is the same as the simple past tense form:
They have arrested the criminal.</p>
<p>I have seized the opportunity.
Forming the past participle of nearly every verb should be simple for fluent English speakers. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to read through this list, which offers the base form, simple past form, and past participle, respectively:
Arise; Arose; Arisen</p>
<p>Become; Became; Become</p>
<p>Begin; Began; Begun</p>
<p>Blow; Blew; Blown</p>
<p>Break; Broke; Broken</p>
<p>Choose; Chose; Chosen</p>
<p>Come; Came; Come</p>
<p>Dive; Dived/Dove; Dived</p>
<p>Do; Did; Done</p>
<p>Draw; Drew; Drawn</p>
<p>Drink; Drank; Drunk</p>
<p>Drive; Drove; Driven</p>
<p>Drown; Drowned; Drowned</p>
<p>Dwell; Dwelt/dwelled; Dwelt/dwelled</p>
<p>Eat; Ate; Eaten</p>
<p>Fall; Fell; Fallen</p>
<p>Fight; Fought; Fought</p>
<p>Flee; Fled; Fled</p>
<p>Fling; Flung; Flung</p>
<p>Fly; Flew; Flown</p>
<p>Forget; Forgot; Forgotten</p>
<p>Freeze; Froze; Frozen</p>
<p>Get; Got; Gotten</p>
<p>Give; Gave; Given</p>
<p>Go; Went; Gone</p>
<p>Grow; Grew; Grown</p>
<p>Hang (a thing); Hung; Hung</p>
<p>Hang (a person); Hanged; Hanged</p>
<p>Know; Knew; Known</p>
<p>Lay; Laid; Laid</p>
<p>Lead; Led; Led</p>
<p>Lie (to recline); Lay; Lain</p>
<p>Lie (tell fibs); Lied; Lied</p>
<p>Put; Put; Put</p>
<p>Ride; Rode; Ridden</p>
<p>Ring; Rang; Rung</p>
<p>Rise; Rose; Risen</p>
<p>Run; Ran; Run</p>
<p>See; Saw; Seen</p>
<p>Set; Set; Set</p>
<p>Shine; Shone; Shone</p>
<p>Shake; Shook; Shaken</p>
<p>Shrink; Shrank; Shrunk</p>
<p>Shut; Shut; Shut</p>
<p>Sing; Sang; Sung</p>
<p>Sink; Sank; Sunk</p>
<p>Sit; Sat; Sat</p>
<p>Speak; Spoke; Spoken</p>
<p>Spring; Sprang; Sprung</p>
<p>Sting; Stung; Stung</p>
<p>Strive; Strove/strived; Striven/strived</p>
<p>Swear; Swore; Swore</p>
<p>Swim; Swam; Swum</p>
<p>Swing; Swung; Swung</p>
<p>Take; Took; Taken</p>
<p>Tear; Tore; Torn</p>
<p>Throw; Threw; Thrown</p>
<p>Wake; Woke; Woken</p>
<p>Wear; Wore; Worn</p>
<p>Write; Wrote; Written
Several times in the past, the SAT has tested test-takers’ ability to recognize the use of an incorrect past participle.</p>
<p>Avoiding the passive voice: When the grammatical subject of a verb is logically performing the action of the verb, the verb is in the active voice, as in:
Bob went home.</p>
<p>I have talked to Bob.
If not, the verb is in the passive voice, as in:
Bob was talked to by me.</p>
<p>Many gifts have been given out this Christmas.
In the first sentence Bob is the subject of the verb, but Bob is not the one talkingwe find the true logical subject in the prepositional phrase: me. Likewise, in the second sentence gifts is the subject of the verb, but the logical subject of the verb is nowhere in the sentence. </p>
<p>Now, the passive voice is not ungrammatical, nor is it always stylistically inappropriate. There are times when the passive voice is preferred, such as when we want to emphasize what would have been the object in the active voice or when we do not know the true subject. For example, in that sentence I said, “There are times when the passive is preferred.” Preferred by whom? We don’t find the answer in the sentence, because I employed the passive and did not identify the true subject in a prepositional phrase. But it worked fine.</p>
<p>In general, however, we want to know who or what is performing the actions of verbs, so the general practice should be to use the active voice whenever possible. This is reflected on the SAT’s Improving Sentences questions, on which the passive voice seldom appears in the correct answer.</p>
<p>(You’ll likely notice that past participles are used in forming the passive voice.)</p>
<p>Shifting tenses: A sentence need not be in one tense. For example:
I want to go to the movies, but I did not used to.
We shifted from the simple present tense to the imperfect tense, and that is perfectly grammatical. There are no complex grammatical guidelines for deciding whether a tense shift is appropriate. All you need is an understanding of what each tense means (which I attempted to facilitate with my earlier descriptions) and to logically apply that understanding. Indeed, logic needs to drive your determination of whether a tense is appropriate. For example, we cannot logically say:
I will eat a hot dog yesterday.
Likewise, we cannot logically say:
Before they left the house, they will pack all their belongings.
Such a shift is simply illogical. As long as you are watchful of the tenses present in a sentence, spotting illogical shifts should not be problematic.</p>
<p>It is worth reiterating the common trigger words for the perfect tenses. by often signals the past perfect or future perfect, as in:
By the time I was ten years old, I had been talking for almost a year.</p>
<p>By the time you get here, I will have left.
since (when used as a preposition as opposed to a subordinating conjunction, which I will discuss soon) often signals the past perfect or present perfect, as in:
Since birth, I had been a winner; then you came along.</p>
<p>Since I got here, I have been eating nothing but food.
Verbals</p>
<p>There are three main types of verbals, which are technically verbs but function as different parts of speech:</p>
<ul>
<li>Participles function adjectively. Present participles, which usually have the suffix -ing, indicate present conditions, as in an eating rabbit (the rabbit is currently eating). Past participles describe past states or actions. For example, an eaten rabbit was eaten by something in the past. </li>
</ul>
<p>We can use participles in three main ways. First, we can modify a noun adjacently:
I want a working fan.
We can also offset the participle to modify a noun; this often involves the use of a participial phrase:
Running, he left the building.</p>
<p>Angry, the frogs were not likely to sign the treaty. or</p>
<p>Having been angered, the frogs were not likely to sign the treaty. or</p>
<p>Angered, the frogs were not likely to sign the treaty.
The last three sentences mean very similar things. In fact, the last two sentences are identical in meaning: you can add Having been to a past participle to make a participial phrase. You can also add Being to angry with no effect on the meaning.</p>
<p>We can also use participles in normal verb phrases:
He is running.</p>
<p>He has run.</p>
<p>Mis-modification with phrases: Looking for mis-modifiers is crucial on the SAT’s Identifying Errors and Improving Sentences questions. When using participial phrases and prepositional phrases that have a participle in them, one must take special care to ensure that the subject of the clause that the phrase is attached to is what is intended to be modified. The phrase usually comes before the clause, but it can intervene or come after. Consider these sentences, all of which are incorrect:
Looking back, he should not have done that.</p>
<p>Having finished that, it is time for us to move on to the weather.</p>
<p>In completing their project early, we have saved much time thanks to the construction company. </p>
<p>As a veteran patron, this customer service really disappoints me.</p>
<p>Considering the recent increase, the higher number is not surprising.</p>
<p>Given the recent increase, the higher number is not surprising.</p>
<p>When using this medication, irritation or dryness may occur.
These sentences could be corrected thus:
Looking back, I see that he should not have done that.</p>
<p>Having finished that, we move on now to the weather.</p>
<p>In completing their project early, the construction company has saved us much time.</p>
<p>I, as a veteran patron, am really disappointed by this customer service.</p>
<p>Considering the recent increase, I am not surprised by the higher number.</p>
<p>Given the recent increase, I am not surprised by the higher number.</p>
<p>When using this medication, you may experience irritation or dryness.</p>
<p>Exampling some other modifying errors is worthwhile.</p>
<p>Misplaced limiting modifiers usually occur when the verb of a sentence is adverbially modified and the intention is to instead modify the verb’s object.
Bob almost sold candy to every person in the neighborhood!
It is more likely that the intended meaning was this:
Bob sold candy to almost every person in the neighborhood!</p>
<p>Squinting modifiers occur when an adverb could be modifying either a word before it or one after it.
Eating food quickly causes hunger.
Does quickly eating food cause hunger, or does eating food quickly cause hunger? We need to clarify:
Quickly eating food causes hunger. or</p>
<p>Eating food causes hunger quickly.</p>
<p>Ambiguous prepositional modifiers can usually be avoided only be reworking a sentence’s structure. Consider this ambiguous sentence:
I stopped the oil flow with my child.
Did you use the child to stop the flow, or did you and the child stop the flow together? Consider this example as well (though its not technically a prepositional mis-modifier):
I want to show my best friend Squidward to everyone in town wearing a salmon suit.</p>
<ul>
<li>Infinitives comprise the base form of a word and to. For example, the infinitive of eat is to eat. That is the present infinitive; there are also perfect infinitives, such as to have eaten (e.g., I want to have eaten a hot dog by the time I get home). </li>
</ul>
<p>There is not much to know about infinitives for the SAT. A commonly cited “error” is the split infinitive, in which an adverb intervenes between to and the base form of the verb, as in to happily eat. This is, however, not a real error.</p>
<ul>
<li>Gerunds function as nouns and always end in the suffix -ing. </li>
</ul>
<p>Failing to distinguish between participles and gerunds: Earlier, I offered this ungrammatical sentence:
I looked up and saw a person stealing my burrito!
stealing is a gerund there. Gerunds need to be treated as nouns, and a noun can be modified by another noun or pronoun only if that noun or pronoun is in the possessive case. So the sentence must be revised thus:
I looked up and saw a person’s stealing my burrito!
After all, it is the stealing that most interests the speaker, not the person. If, however, the logical emphasis is on the non-gerund noun, the modifier is best thought of as a participle, as in:
I looked up and saw the President walking to his car!
Clearly, the speaker is referring to the fact that he saw the President; what the President was doing was incidental. Thus, we do not use the possessive case. Consider this sentence:
I looked up and saw the President/President’s walking toward me!
In this case either form is justifiable: the speaker could be amazed by the action (i.e., the President’s walking toward him or her) or the person himself. Consider these examples, in which the possessive case is rendered necessary because of the intent of the sentence:
His not being here is frustrating.</p>
<p>I don’t like my dog’s peeing on the rug.</p>
<p>My son’s running into me caused my injury.</p>
<p>The failure of the system was due to its not being well regulated.
For these sentences the words ending in -ing are participles:
I don’t want to buy a computer nearing the end of its life.</p>
<p>Around the corner was my long-lost dog sitting on the sidewalk.</p>
<p>However, we do make practical exceptions to the general rule that gerunds must be possessively modified. With indefinite and reflexive pronouns, for example, using the possessive form is either particularly awkward or impossible:
Everybody’s doing his or her own work helped get the project done.</p>
<p>I don’t like myself’s not having high self-esteem.
The first sentence sounds so awkward that you may avoid the possessive case for that one, but using it is not ungrammatical. In the second sentence, though, we cannot use the possessive form because no such word exists.</p>
<p>On the Improving Sentences questions of the SAT, it will often ungrammatically precede a gerund (usually being). If you can determine that being is not being used as a participle, you can rule that answer out. Consider these sentences:
I am so happy about it being cheap!
Such a sentence is incorrect, because the speaker is happy about the cheapness. It must be rewritten as:
I am so happy about its being cheap!</p>
<p>Incorrectly using a gerund or infinitive as a complement: When an infinitive or gerund is the object of a verb, we call it that verb’s complement. Some verbs must take infinitive complements; others must take gerund complements; and some can take either. Some nouns also take infinitive or gerund complements. Follow these guidelines for deciding whether to use an infinitive or gerund.</p>
<p>Abstract nouns usually take infinitive complements. Some common abstract nouns are tendency, motivation, and desire. So, one would say that someone has a tendency to, for example, exaggerate things.</p>
<p>The object of a preposition is often a gerund. One says that they need help with getting elected. </p>
<p>(The following lists are adapted from here.)</p>
<p>The following verbs take infinitive complements:
agree
aim
appear
arrange
ask
attempt
be able
beg
begin
care
choose
condescend
consent
continue
dare
decide
deserve
detest
dislike
expect
fail
forget
get
happen
have
hesitate
hope
hurry
intend
leap
leave
like
long
love
mean
neglect
offer
ought
plan
prefer
prepare
proceed
promise
propose
refuse
remember
say
shoot
start
stop
strive
swear
threaten
try
use
wait
want
wish
The following verbs can take an object and an infinitive, as in I will advise him to stop, where him is the object:
advise
allow
ask
beg
bring
build
buy
challenge
choose
command
dare
direct
encourage
expect
forbid
force
have
hire
instruct
invite
lead
leave
let
like
love
motivate
order
pay
permit
persuade
prepare
promise
remind
require
send
teach
tell
urge
want
warn
The following verbs take gerund complements:
admit
advise
appreciate
avoid
can’t help
complete
consider
delay
deny
detest
dislike
enjoy
escape
excuse
finish
forbid
get through
have
imagine
mind
miss
permit
postpone
practice
quit
recall
report
resent
resist
resume
risk
spend (time)
suggest
tolerate
waste (time)
The following verbs can take a preposition and a gerund, as in We talked about stopping:
admit to
approve of
argue about
believe in
care about
complain about
concentrate on
confess to
depend on
disapprove of
discourage from
dream about
feel like
forget about
insist on
object to
plan on
prevent (someone) from
refrain from
succeed in
talk about
think about
worry about