Verb Tense Questions | Grammar & Writing: Question Types

Introduction

Verb tense questions on the CLT primarily assess your ability to:

maintain consistent verb tense within sentences and paragraphs.
recognize correct tense shifts prompted by time markers or logical progression.
distinguish a finite (main) verb form and a form (often an -ing form) that cannot serve as a sentence’s main verb.

Once again, context plays a primary role in ensuring you have chosen the correct tense (past, present, future, etc.). As always, as shown in the DIRECT method, read the entire sentence in which the verb is found. But if you still feel uncertain, you may need to zoom out and read backward or forward 1-2 sentences more to ensure you have thoroughly understood what verb “time” is appropriate.

Approach Question

Should you leave the sentence below as it is or opt for one of the three alternatives listed in the answer choices?

Ever since I learned about how World War I began, I thought of it differently.

A. NO CHANGE
B. had thought
C. have thought
D. will have thought

This example illustrates how there are nuances to the past and present tenses in English; we must carefully read the whole sentence in order to determine the best usage here.

Taking the last clause by itself, several of the answer choices sound possible: “I thought of it differently,” “I had thought of it differently,” “I have thought of it differently.” Which is best here? We have to locate exactly where the narration is in time, using the first part of the sentence. The key words are “ever since.” This introduction shows us that the narrator learned about the beginning of World War I and things have been different ever since. S/he began to think–and still thinks–about the war differently than s/he did before. This different kind of thinking isn’t something that began and ended; it is still happening as the narrator speaks in the present.

This means that, of the options, “have thought” is best. “Thought” alone would imply that the narrator thought something in the past but does so no longer. “Had thought” would push the action even further back into the past and away from where the narration currently stands. “Will have thought” is an uncommon form that has some future continuous action to it, but the sentence is not primarily focused on the future.

The tense expressed in “have thought” is known as the present perfect tense because it has aspects of both present (the action is still going on) and past (the action started in the past). “Perfect” is a grammatical word describing generally past tense verbs. It is not necessary to know the names of all English verb tenses, but in cases of a nuanced, combination-form verb tense like the present perfect, it is helpful to draw attention to it and make sure its meaning is clear in your mind.

General Strategy

Understand the tense spectrum.

We encourage you to read the table below, including the examples. Again, you do not need to memorize all the tense with their names, but make sure you feel comfortable with the meaning of each of the tenses represented here.
English uses forms of the verb “to be” to create additional nuance in a verb. For example, “I walked” shows that the action happened in the past, but we don’t know when or for how long. “I was walking” adds a continuous aspect to the action, as well as a vividness that brings the reader closer to the action.

Simple present	I eat cupcakes.
Present continuous	I am eating cupcakes.
Simple past	Yesterday, I ate cupcakes.
Past continuous	Yesterday, I was eating cupcakes when the doorbell rang.
Present perfect	I have eaten cupcakes regularly since 2011.
Present perfect continuous	I have been eating cupcakes regularly since 2011.
Past perfect	I had eaten cupcakes before I went swimming. Bad idea.
Past perfect continuous	I had been eating cupcakes while on lifeguard duty. Oops.
Future perfect	I will have eaten hundreds of cupcakes by my 20th birthday.
Simple future	I will eat a cupcake for dinner.
Future continuous	I will be eating cupcakes all my life.
Future perfect continuous	I will have been eating cupcakes for over a decade by age 20.
Conditional	I would eat cupcakes for all three meals a day if I could.
Gerund	I sure do like eating cupcakes.
Present Participle	I saw a happy girl eating cupcakes.

Try this question now.

Should you leave the sentence below as it is or opt for one of the three alternatives listed in the answer choices?

The jubilant students, fresh off their state championship victory the day before, returning home to joy and adulation.

A. NO CHANGE
B. returned
C. returns
D. will have returned

(spoiler)

In considering verb tense, we take note of the context in which the particular verb is set. In what time is the action happening? What time markers help us answer that question? In this case, the phrase “the day before” sheds the most light. We typically only use that phrase when already speaking in the past tense; there is an action, and something that happened a day before that action. If the action were happening in the present, it would make little sense to say “the day before”; rather, we could simply say “yesterday”.

For that reason, we can rule out the present tense answer (“returns”), but that verb also fails to agree with the plural subject “students”, so it is doubly rejected. “Returning” can’t work because we need a main verb for the sentence and an “-ing” form cannot function as a main verb. “Will have returned” is interesting; we can indeed speak of “the day before” if we are looking into the future. For example, we might say, “On Saturday I will take the CLT; the day before, I’ll make sure to get some good rest.” But in this case, a person would have to be a prophet to know in advance that the students will win the state championship! Not to mention the other events the sentence describes … so if there is a better choice, we should choose it.

There is indeed a better choice: the simple past tense. “The students returned …” is by far the most natural option, describing what a victory already won and the response to the victory. The answer is B.

Look for cues like “yesterday,” “before,” “since,” or “next year.”

Example: By the time the event begins, preparations will have been completed.

Notice how the complicated form “will have been completed” works here because the marker “by the time” puts the event in the future; the “have been” part adds a past completion aspect. It’s as if we stand at a particular point in the future and look backward from there to see what has taken place.

Try this question now.

Should you leave the sentence below as it is or opt for one of the three alternatives listed in the answer choices?

What causes the fascinating patterns of migrating starlings, or “murmurings,” is baffling scientists for years, but they believe the earth’s magnetic fields play a role.

A. NO CHANGE
B. has baffled
C. will baffle
D. baffles

(spoiler)

In order to answer this question, we need to first unravel the complicated syntax of the sentence. The subject of the verb “baffle” (in some form) is not a single word but rather the entire phrase “what causes the fascinating patterns of migrating starlings.” We know this because if we ask the question, In this sentence, what baffles scientists?, that entire phrase is the answer.

So, something is baffling or did baffle the scientists, but we still haven’t answered the tense question. The phrase “for years” helps us get there, as does the present tense “they believe.” The latter shows us that we are sitting with the scientists in the present time, but the “for years” reveals that the past time is involved as well. Something has been going on and is still going on. For this kind of action, we need the tense known as the present perfect, which uses the words “has” or “have”.

So, although the present tense answers (“baffles” and “is baffling”) might seem good at first, it doesn’t make sense to say that something “baffles for years.” Since this “baffling” started in the past and endures into the present, we must choose answer B.

Be consistent with conditional language (e.g., “could” and “would”).

Example: If she had known, she would have acted differently.

Try this question now.

Should you leave the sentence below as it is or opt for one of the three alternatives listed in the answer choices?

She erased her past through the creative imagination of her agent ushered in a new era of popularity for the singer.

A. NO CHANGE
B. Erase
C. Erased
D. Erasing

(spoiler)

This question may seem simple at first, because “She erased her past …” This is where the DIRECT method’s reminder to read the whole sentence becomes a vital instruction. If we opt for “She erased …” we have a problem, because “ushered”, later in the sentence, also sounds like the main verb in the sentence. We can’t have two main verbs competing with each other to be the heart of the sentence!

This realization opens our minds to the other choices. “Erased” and “erase”, though, don’t make much sense, because this is the beginning of the sentence, and there would be no subject to show us who is doing the erasing. So we must select what is known as a gerund: a verbal form acting as a noun. This accords with the sentence because, if we understand the whole structure, we see that there needs to be a subject for “ushered”. Who or what is doing the ushering? As it turns out, it is “erasing” that does the action; “erasing” is what changed things for the singer. The answer is ““D””.

For Reflection

Rate the difficulty of CLT Verb Tense questions for you from 1 (no problem) to 5 (problem!). This will help you decide how much time to spend preparing for this passage.
Do you understand the difference between the tenses described in the table? If some of the seem challenging to you, record them on flashcards for consideration later.
Consider reading online about the difference between tense and mood in English grammar. We chose not to emphasize that difference in that lesson because they are similar in idea (and “mood” questions rarely surface), but since a couple of the quiz questions referenced the idea of mood, it’s worth looking into it if you’re not familiar. But keep in mind that, if you’ve studied Latin, French, or Spanish, you have encountered mood when you have studied the subjunctive and imperative.