Today’s GMAT tip comes from Kaplan. In this article, Kaplan GMAT instructor Bret Ruber offers advice on the perfect tense:
When confronting a sentence correction problem, one of the first error types for which test-takers (rightfully) search is an incorrect verb tense. In order to identify the correct verb tense to use in a specific situation, students must be aware of the appropriate context of each tense. This is especially important when one of the “perfect” tenses is in play.
The perfect tenses are the past perfect, the present perfect and the future perfect and each is used in a specific situation. The ability to identify which of these tenses to use can be influential in your answering sentence correction problems correctly.
First up is the past perfect tense. The past perfect tense is used to refer to something happening in the past before (or, more rarely, after) something else that happened at a different point in the past. The word “had” is used to indicate the past perfect tense. For example, you would say “I had bought snacks, before I went to the movie,” as buying snacks happened before going to the movie. Two events happening at two different points in the past require the past perfect tense.
Next is the present perfect tense. The present perfect tense will be used in two distinct situations. First, it is used to refer to something happening in the past continuing into the present. For example, you could say “I have been studying for the GMAT,” because you were studying in the past and you are still studying right now. Second, it is used to refer to events that could have occurred at any point in the past. For example, “I have taken the GMAT.” You could have taken the GMAT at any point in the past. Contrast this with the sentence, “I took the GMAT.” This is simple past tense and would indicate that you took the GMAT at a specific point in time. For example, it would be an appropriate response to the question, “what did you do yesterday?” Note that the present perfect uses “have” or “has” depending on the subject of the sentence.
Last is the future perfect, used to refer to something happening in the present continuing into the future. For example, “By the end of the month, I will have finished studying for the GMAT.” You are studying right now, and will continue in the future. The phrase “will have” should be used to indicate the future perfect.
While you won’t have to know the phrases “past perfect” and so on for the GMAT, a clear understanding of these various verb tenses will help you quickly eliminate and identify the correct option on the common verb-related sentence correction questions. Good luck!
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Read the full article: GMAT Tip: Perfecting Your Perfect Tenses for the GMAT