<p>To those of us who (had heard) the principal of the high school talk about
the budget, the news of the staff cuts was not surprising. </p>
<p>I said that 'Had heard' was the error but apparently it is not. Why is 'had heard'
correct? </p>
<p>The seven month old baby was considered precocious (to her family) because she
was already able to grasp tiny items. </p>
<p>Apparently the error is at 'to her family' but I dont understand why. Is it because we
dont know the gender of the baby. I know this but later in the sentence they use 'she'
so it must be a girl. I am very confused</p>
<p>PLEASE HELP</p>
<p>For the first, why do you think it’s wrong? You can’t assume a sentence is wrong without some actual grammatical thought.</p>
<p>The second is an idiom. “by her family” I believe is correct.</p>
<p>One thing I would do is memorize or be comfortable with idioms, that will help a lot. Well I want to know as well went to use, had vs has. Just like how GoodJobBro said what makes you believe that it is wrong? Plus if you look at the whole sentence you should notice that, it is past tense so had is appropriate in the sentence.</p>
<p>SENTENCE 1
The hearing of the principal’s speech precedes, in time, the announcement of the staff cuts. These two events are not occurring simultaneously.</p>
<p>If the writer narrates the later event in the simple past tense (“was not surprising”) or even the perfect tense (has not been surprising"), the earlier event must take the pluperfect (“had heard”). “Pluperfect” literally means “more than perfect”, indicating an action completed earlier in time than a later one also mentioned.</p>
<p>If the writer replaced “had heard” with just the simple past “heard”, (s)he would imply that the speech coincided with the news, altering the intended meaning of the sentence. </p>
<p>SENTENCE 2
Think about who is doing the act of “considering”.</p>
<p>A sentence that employs the passive voice should introduce the performers of the action in the verb with the preposition “by” (i.e. “by the family”) rather than “to”.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot. I seem to always get confused with the perfect past and when it is okay to use it. For the second question that’s damn sneaky.</p>