<p>Hey guys, so I am getting used o the writing portion of the sat now, but I still seem to have some verb problems:</p>
<p>In 1508, the Spanish explorer Juan ponce de Leon - the same ponce de Leon who later would seek the fountain of youth - landed on puerto Rico accompanied by a small force.</p>
<p>I thought the error was "would seek" but apparently there is no error... When should I look for verb errors? Another one</p>
<p>I had this same exact problem with this same exact question before. It’s all about verb tenses.</p>
<p>Refer to this thread
**<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/1291202-why-correct-answer-writing-q.html[/url][/B]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/1291202-why-correct-answer-writing-q.html**</a></p>
<p>When the verb is the error that are several options as to why it is wrong:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Subject verb agreement: Does the verb match the subject?
i.e: The dog were eating the bone.
The verb does not match the singularity of the subject, dog, so the verb is wrong.</p></li>
<li><p>Verb tense agreement: Is the verb in its proper tense?
i.e: Yesterday, I went to the park then I eat food for dinner.
Through contextualizing the sentence, we can see that everything happened in the past. So the verb needs to be in the tense that expresses the past. Went is the past tense of go, but eat is the present tense of eat. In order for the verb to be correct, eat must be ate as you may well have guessed. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>In this particular case, would seek is a present conditional. Conditionals are tricky tenses to comprehend because there are so many types of conditionals (1st conditional, 2nd conditional, 3rd conditional, zero conditional, mixed conditionals and so forth) but basically it is the idea that something happened as a result of something. </p>
<p>In this case, Ponce sought the fountain of youth as a result of landing on Puerto Rico. </p>
<p>As a result, this verb tense is correct. </p>
<p>If that is too confusing, then a more simple answer is that it makes sense and it sounds right. Usually these two factors can help influence your decision making process. :)</p>