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Verb tense and form

Pick the verb tense and form that fit the time frame the surrounding sentences establish.

Standard English ConventionsReading and Writing
Practice verb tense and form free

What the SAT actually asks

You choose the correct tense and form of a verb based on context. The passage usually establishes a time frame through other verbs or through time markers such as in 1904, since then, or currently. You need simple past for a completed event, present for an ongoing fact, and perfect tenses for actions positioned relative to another point in time. Questions also test irregular past participles and the difference between a finite verb and a participle that would leave the sentence incomplete.

Verb tense and form questions usually appear about 2 to 3 times among the 54 reading and writing questions.

Where students lose points

How to attack these questions

  1. 1Find the time markers and the tense of the surrounding verbs before you read the choices.
  2. 2Ask whether the sentence already has a main verb, since that decides whether a participle is allowed.
  3. 3Use the past perfect only when the sentence clearly describes something that happened before another past event.

Example questions

Written for this skill, with the answer explained. 60 more are in the app.

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Verb tense and form
Real question

Anthropologist Kofi Mensah lived in the fishing town for two years, learned the local trading vocabulary, and eventually ______ a partner in one of the boats himself.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Easier

Seeds of the Judean date palm recovered from a desert fortress sat in a drawer for forty years. In 2005 a researcher planted three of them, and within weeks one ______ .

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) will germinate
  • B) has germinated
  • C) germinates
  • D) germinated ✓

Why: “In 2005 a researcher planted” anchors the sentence in the past, and “within weeks” continues that same narrative, so the simple past is required for parallel time reference. “will germinate” moves the sprouting into the future, though it happened weeks after the 2005 planting. “has germinated” is present perfect, which cannot sit inside a story fixed at 2005. “germinates” is simple present and breaks with the dated past narration.

Medium

The bridge crew reached the Saskatchewan crossing in late June with drawings drafted the previous autumn. By the time they arrived, the river ______ nearly two hundred meters west, and the north pier they had come to build would have stood in a dry meadow.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) had shifted ✓
  • B) has shifted
  • C) shifted
  • D) shifts

Why: "By the time they arrived" sets a past reference point and the river's move came before it, so the past perfect "had shifted" is required; "they had come to build" in the same sentence uses the same tense for the same reason. "Shifted" leaves the order of the two past events unmarked, "has shifted" measures from the present, and "shifts" abandons the past frame altogether. Shifted is simple past, which does not show that the river moved before the crew arrived. Shifts is present tense in a sentence anchored in the past. Has shifted is present perfect, which measures the move up to now rather than up to the crew's arrival.

Medium

If the ash layer had not sealed the site within hours of the eruption, the wooden posts and woven baskets ______ long before any archaeologist reached them.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) had decayed
  • B) would decay
  • C) would have decayed ✓
  • D) will have decayed

Why: The “if” clause uses “had not sealed,” the marker of an unreal past condition, and its result clause pairs with “would have” plus a past participle. “had decayed” is past perfect indicative, the form that belongs in the condition itself, not in the consequence. “would decay” is the present unreal form, which would suit a hypothetical about now rather than one about the past. “will have decayed” is future perfect and treats an imagined past outcome as something still ahead.

Questions students ask

When do I use the past perfect tense?

Use had plus a past participle for an action completed before another past action. If the sentence describes only one event in the past, simple past is correct. The past perfect needs a second, later past reference point to be meaningful.

How do I know which tense a passage is using?

Look at the verbs in the sentences around the blank and at explicit time markers such as dates, since, currently, or by the time. Scientific findings and ongoing conditions usually take present tense even when the study happened in the past.

Why is an -ing verb sometimes wrong?

Because a bare -ing form cannot serve as the main verb of a sentence. If the clause has no other finite verb, choosing the -ing form creates a fragment. Check whether the sentence still has a working verb after you insert the choice.

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