Grammar in Use
Tenses across a passage
Choose the tense each gap in a passage needs, using the time signals around it.
In a single sentence you choose a tense. In a passage you choose a whole system of them, and every gap has to fit the ones around it. That is why an exam gap-fill is harder than a list of separate sentences: the answer is not in the gap, it is in the words on either side of it.
Find the time signal first
Almost every gap has a word nearby that settles it. Since points back to a starting moment and pulls the present perfect. For measures a stretch: a stretch that runs up to now pulls the perfect too, but a closed stretch sits in the simple past — she waited for an hour and then left. Before, after and by the time put one past action ahead of another, so they pull the past perfect. When with a longer action pulls the past continuous.
One time, unless something says otherwise
A narrative that starts in the past stays in the past. If you find yourself writing a present-tense verb in a past-tense paragraph, check that something in the sentence actually asked for the change — a general truth, or a state that is still true today.
The past perfect is a step backwards
Use it only when you need to reach behind the main past events of the passage: the thing that had already happened before the story's own past began. A whole paragraph of had-verbs usually means it is being used where the simple past would do.
Worked example
Fill both gaps: "Anu ____ (reach) the ground at six. The others ____ (leave) an hour earlier."
The first gap has a stated past time, six o'clock, so it takes the simple past: reached.
A stated past time closes the door on the present perfect.
Try it together
Let us fill three gaps in one short passage.
The passage is: The library ____ (stand) on this corner since 1948. Last month a truck hit the wall, and for three days the staff ____ (work) among the fallen bricks. By Friday they ____ (clear) every shelf.
1.First gap. The word "since" reaches from 1948 right up to today. Write the two words.
Have a go
Complete with the past perfect of "eat", in two words: We ____ our lunch before the rain came.
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.