ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
English Videos 234 videos
ASVAB Word Knowledge: Word Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes Drill 1, Problem 1. Which of these words is closest in meaning to incoherent?
AP English Literature and Composition 1.4 Passage Drill 1. Which of the following best describes the speaker's attitude towards immortality?
AP English Literature and Composition 1.5 Passage Drill 1. In the third paragraph, how does the author foreshadow a coming tone shift?
Which is the Correct Tense? 405 Views
Share It!
Description:
ACT English: Grammar and Usage Drill 2, Problem 1. Which answer uses the correct tense?
Transcript
- 00:03
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. But remember,
- 00:10
no treaties until after dinner.
- 00:14
What should replace the underlined words below?
- 00:16
The Mexican War had begun in 1846, and it ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
- 00:32
For this question, we'll need to delve into the past. Fortunately, we don't need a Delorean...
Full Transcript
- 00:38
...and/or a hot tub...
- 00:42
...to do so.
- 00:44
First, let's take a look at choice (A), which claims that the original sentence is the picture
- 00:49
of perfection.
- 00:50
Uh, no. As is, the sentence uses the past perfect tense with "had begun."
- 00:56
The past perfect tense can only be used to compare two events in the past, and this part
- 01:01
of the sentence is talking about only one event.
- 01:03
If it said, for example, "The Mexican War had begun by the time construction of the
- 01:08
first Taco Bell on Mexican soil was complete," then it would be correct...
- 01:13
...if not historically accurate.
- 01:14
(B) is easy to eliminate because the past participle of a verb like "begun" always requires
- 01:20
a helping verb like "had."
- 01:23
What can we say? Some people, and verbs, are just needy.
- 01:26
Choice (D) is incorrect as well, because "begin" is present tense.
- 01:30
If the dates the sentence throws around aren't enough, the verb "ended" signals that both
- 01:35
events began and ended in the past.
- 01:37
This leaves us with (C), which correctly uses the past tense verb, "began," to let us know
- 01:42
just when the Mexican War got going.
- 01:45
Side note: we're kind of thinking about changing our name to
- 02:08
Guadalupe Hidalgo.
- 02:11
Thoughts?
Related Videos
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 2. Where should the semi-colon be placed?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 1. How should this sentence be changed so that it is grammatically correct?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 2. How should we properly hyphenate the words in this sentence?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 3, Problem 4. Which choice best formats this list of items?
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 1. Which choice of punctuation best completes the sentence?