<p>I'm pretty good at the SAT Writing Section, but the one type of question that I never understood is past or present perfect, when you add either "has" or "had" before a verb.</p>
<p>I know past perfect is usually something to do with a sentence with multiple phrases, but I'm not sure what conditions and when to/when not to put "had" before a verb</p>
<p>With Present perfect, I'm not really understanding. It's you put "has" before a verb that both occurred in the past and is occurring in the present?</p>
<p>Can someone also answer and explain this question: </p>
<p>The investors wanted to know "did the company make" a profit in the last quarter of the previous year</p>
<p>A) did the company make
B) has the company made
C) had the company made
D) if the company has made
E) whether the company had made</p>
<p>Answer is E, seems strange since it's the most wordy. Can someone say why it's not D?</p>
<p>The answer’s E because it already happened last year. “Has” implies its still happening or existing. The profit making in the last quarter of the previous year already happened, so it’s “had”.</p>
<p>You also use “had” when you have a sequence of events in a sentence in the past.
For example: When he arrived at the station, the train had already left.
The train left before he arrived, so you say “(the train) had left” and “(he) arrived.”</p>
<p>Hope that clears some things up.</p>
<p>@covertcognomen and anyone else: similar question-</p>
<p>in barron’s psat prep book, they give this example as an error in verb tense:</p>
<p>“After the sun set behind the mountain, a cool breeze sprang up and brought relief form the heat.”</p>
<p>the book suggests that ‘set’ should be changed to ‘had set’.</p>
<p>is the original truly wrong?
Is it also wrong to say 'She cried after I left?"
Do the same rules apply for ‘before’ and ‘when’?</p>
<p>thanks dudes and gals.</p>
<p>This is how I remember: </p>
<p>When two events occur in the past, the one that happened first gets ‘had’. This is most easily identified when an SAT sentence has ‘had’ twice in the sentence, usually in an Identifying Sentence Errors question. Only one ‘had’ will be underlined. It is the error.</p>
<p>It’s hard to identify when ‘had’ is completely missing, like in partyhats’ example above. And honestly, I’ve never seen an example like that on a real SAT, but it’s best to be prepared.</p>