ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the word "swum." It's a real word. Seriously.

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We're not kidding.

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What should replace the underlined words below?

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He has swum for three days, and he shows no signs of stopping.

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Awesome, looks like we get to have more fun with past participles.

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Hey, this is how we relax.

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Okay, so we have to know that the past participle of the verb "swim" is "swum."

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Since both (B) and (D) use the present tense "swam" instead, we can easily cross out both choices.

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Yes, sometimes in life, things are easy.

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Now we're left with choices (A) and (C).

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Both use "swum," so we'll have to look to other parts of the sentence.

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The verb "shows" signals that the swimmer is swimming in the present, which is good

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for him because swimming in the past can be dangerous.

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You know, like when the seas were filled with predatory dakosauruses.

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Anyway, because "shows" is in the present tense, the answer we're looking for has to

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be as well.

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Therefore we can eliminate choice (C) because the helping word "had" is stuck in the past.

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Good luck with the dakosauruses, pal.

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The original sentence gets it right, because it takes the present perfect tense with "has

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swum," which makes (A) the right answer.

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We're sure this guy thinks he's cool because he can swim for three days straight, but he'd

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be a lot cooler if he could do so in monster-infested waters.

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