Question 1

I found this question in the practice section for this topic on Khan Academy:

The documentary _Rize_ explores the origins and evolution of Krumping and Clowning, two dance forms that *would have emerged* from South Los Angeles.

We are asked to substitute for the words in bold to make the sentence grammatically correct. The answer given is "*emerged*".

While I understand why this is correct, I wondered if we could use "*have emerged*" (though it was not in the options provided).

Another place where I felt confused:
"Ever since Alice discovered the secret elevator, she *is using* it to travel between the first and second floors and to avoid crowds in the hallway."
The answer given is "has been using". Is "used" also correct here? (Again, I understand why the given answer is right but this wasn't in the options and I wanted to know if it was correct.)

In which situations do we use have/has + verb and have/has + been + verb?

Accepted Answer

The Khan Academy grammar course and the people that answer questions there may be able to provide a little more insight. 
"have + verb" is a verb form we call the perfect tense. You use it to talk about things that may have started happening in the past but still have an impact in the present. In the question, "have emerged" would mean that Krumping and Clowning are still around today. Just plain "emerged" wouldn't give you information about them today. 
"has been + verb" is called the perfect continuous. This combines the ideas of the perfect tense, and the continuous (AKA progressive) one (verbs that end in "-ing" and mean that an action is currently ongoing). It signifies that the action started in the past, but is continuing on in the present. In the second example, "has been using" means that Alice started using it a while ago, and is still using it when the sentence takes place. "Used" would also make grammatical sense there, but it would slightly change the meaning of the sentence, and you would no longer know if Alice was using the elevator in the present or not.

Question 2

i dont rly understand:(

Accepted Answer

What do you not understand? I can help out if you would like

Question 3

I thought the preferable answer there would have been occurs because IS is singular and occurs is also singular but occur is plural

Accepted Answer

When you're making sure that nouns and verbs are in agreement, you have to make sure to correctly identify the noun that the verb is talking about. Here, the verb "occur" would be referring to the two species of flowering plants. Because we have a plural noun, we need the plural form which is "occur". "Is" is singular here because it refers to Antarctic Pearlwort, which is a singular noun.

Question 4

How do you know when to use the Simple, Perfect, Progressive, and Perfect-progressive tenses?

Accepted Answer

Simple is like well simple. Perfect is talking about something you've completed. Progressive is something that's still happening. Perfect-progressive is a bit tricky: it's a combination of completion and something that is still ongoing. But reading the surrounding text will help you spot patterns. Sometimes the passage will use the same tense.

Question 5

is  progressive tense and stuff like that gonna be on the shsat?

Accepted Answer

The SAT will never go out and ask "What is the name for the tense of this verb" or anything like that, but it will test to see if you can use the progressive by asking you to choose the verb with the tense that matches up most with the sentence and things like that. You'll have to know what a verb in the progressive tense does, but not really anything past that.

Question 6

Shouldn't it be "if she has the time "instead of had

Accepted Answer

Nope, this sentence’s verbs are written correctly. When the sentence’s main clause (without the “if”) uses the word “would” but not “would have”, the if clause will use the simple past verb tense. That’s why it needs to be “had the time” instead of “has the time”: to match the rest of the sentence.   This is called the *second conditional*.

Using “has the time” would either make the sentence *real conditional* (If she has the time, she runs every day.) or *first conditional*: (If she has the time, she will run every day.)

It’s pretty complicated, but that sentence uses the conditional correctly. I hope this helps a bit.

SAT (Fall 2023)

Course: SAT (Fall 2023) > Unit 11

Verb tense and mood | Quick guide

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