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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?
Which is the Correct Tense? 405 Views
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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?
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