Verb tenses

Verbs at first glance are tricky, especially on the ACT. However, they’re totally doable.

Verbs in English (and indeed in most languages) change their forms according to who is doing the verb, how many things are doing the verb, and when the verb is being done. The phrase “verb tense” refers to the last component: the time.

Simple tenses

There are three basic verb tenses in English, and a few more complicated ones.

• Simple past—the action of the verb took place before the time of the speaker speaking of it.
• Simple present—the action of the verb takes place at the same time as the speaker speaking of it.
• Simple future—the action of the verb will take place later than the speaker is speaking of it.

Note that in the above descriptions, we used examples with the word “take”:

• Simple past: took
• Simple present: takes
• Simple future: will take

We have full confidence that if this is all the complexity the ACT would use, you would nail the 36 and wouldn’t need to be here! Unfortunately, it gets a little more difficult, so get ready to spend some time practicing with our quizzes.

Complex tenses

There are also perfect and imperfect or continuous designations as well. All this means, though, is that the action of the verb has been completed (perfect—think of the word “perfect” in the sense of “complete” or, not needing anything else to be done to it) or still going on.

• Past perfect: had taken
• Past continuous: was/were taking
• Present perfect: have/has taken
• Present continuous: am/is/are taking
• Future perfect: will have taken
• Future continuous: will be taking

There we go. That’s with the word “take.” Unfortunately, every verb in the English language has each of these tenses. Most of them follow the same sorts of rules. Many of them, however, are irregular, or are exceptions to those rules. We can’t really cover every single one here, but the good news is that if English is your first language, you should have a handle on just about all of these.

If English isn’t your first language, you’ll need to study the verb tense section of your ESL class very closely to perform well on the ACT English Section.

Considerations and commonly confused words

• Relating to the above examples, “tooken” is not a real word. Refer to the above forms for correct tenses for “take”
• There is no need to use the past or present participle when you could just use the simple past. Don’t pick “She had taken four hours to get home” when you could just say “She took four hours to get home.” The first one may sound right in conversation but it’s not technically the same thing.

Let’s look at a commonly confused word that the ACT does occasionally test:

Examples for “lay”

Use the word “lay” when talking about putting an object somewhere.

• Simple Present: lay: He lays down his badge thoughtfully.
• Simple Past: laid: He laid down his badge thoughtfully.
• Simple Future: will lay: They say he will lay down his badge and authority.
• Past Perfect: had laid: He had laid down his badge.
• Past Continuous: was/were laying: He was laying down his badge, when suddenly…
• Present Perfect: has/have laid: He has laid down his badge.
• Present Continuous: am/are/is laying: He is laying down his badge as we speak.

The future tenses are pretty easy to put together from here so we won’t list them.

Examples for “lie”

Use the word “lie” when talking about resting.

• Simple Present: lie: I should lie down.
• Simple Past: lay: I lay down after I was injured.
• Simple Future: will lie: He said he will lie down when he gets there
• Past Perfect: had lain: He had lain there for hours.
• Past Continuous: had/have been lying: He had been lying there for hours.
• Present Perfect: have/has lain: The dog has lain on that couch before.
• Present Continuous: am/are/is lying: The dog is lying on the couch again.

The difficult thing here is that some of the forms of these words overlap. If this isn’t natural to you, you’ll want to do the work or remember which is which.

Other tricky words:

• “Wake”: While this is debated a lot in verbal speech, don’t stress about whether “woken” or “waked” should be used. The ACT almost certainly will not ask this since it gets into a gray area. Technically, as of this writing, both are acceptable forms.
• The word “seen” should only be used with tense that use “has,” “had,” or “have.” We don’t say “I seen that movie.” We say “I have seen that movie” where appropriate, or simply “I saw that movie” where it is appropriate.
• The past tense for “hang” is “hung,” except where one is referring to the method of execution. Then, “hanged” is preferred.

Use consistent verb tense

Verb tenses need to remain consistent throughout a sentence if the time focus of that sentence doesn’t shift.

I woke up yesterday and had a splitting headache that bothered me all day.

Here, we have a consistent narrative with regard to time. It doesn’t jump around. All of it happened yesterday, so we have to keep the simple past tense throughout.

It is acceptable to shift time, however, in which case the verb tenses need to morph with it:

I woke up yesterday and realized that I had forgotten to take my medicine the day before.

Here, we start at one point in the past, so we want the simple past woke up. This is still true for realized. After that, though, we go to a point even further back (the day before) to an action that had already been completed by the first time point (yesterday) of the sentence. Therefore, we want the past perfect had forgotten.