<p>When exactly should you use the perfect tenses? I tend to miss problems where you identify errors concerning perfect tenses. </p>
<p>A poor example, but how would you distinguish between the two: </p>
<p>1) I ate.
2) I had eaten. </p>
<p>How do you know which one to choose? Of course the SAT problems differ from my faulty example, can somebody please explain in detail as to how to determine which tense to use and share any clever methods to help differentiate the two. </p>
<p>Also, another type of question I struggle with is ambiguous pronoun references. </p>
<p>One last question, how do you identify a vague pronoun reference. </p>
<p>i.e.: John is habitually tardy, which annoys his parents. My book says this is wrong but doesn't offer any explanations. Can somebody please elaborate as to why this is wrong? Thanks!</p>
<p>John is habitually tardy, which annoys his parents.</p>
<p>We suspect that John’s tardiness annoys his parents, but it could be John that annoys his parents. The pronoun is vague because the antecedent cannot be clearly identified.</p>
<p>I understand that the perfect is used in relation with two different events, but how do you tell on the SAT MC? Can somebody please clarify? I appreciate the links, but they don’t address my question as to how to identify errors on the writing section. Thanks!</p>