DO THIS with SAT Verb Questions

In this video, we're going to cover everything you need to know about verb tense on the SAT. Starting with how to spot verb tense questions. The first thing you always want to do when you notice verbs as your answer choices is the odd verb out trick. This is going to tell you whether or not you're dealing with subjectverb agreement or verb tense. In this question, for example, we take look. We see that we do indeed have verbs as our answer choices. And the oddverb out trick is simply going to be either matching these up with they, or matching them up with he, or she. So we would say they are, they were, they have been, but we would say she is. So the odd verb out is is because it's the only one that works with she. Everything else would work with they. And if this trick doesn't work, then you are dealing with verb tense. All right. Now that we've got that covered, let's talk about the rules. Starting with number one, use the simple present tense for general facts or habits. This question right here is great example of habit. So, let's quickly read through this. Since the fall of the Galactic Empire, many outer room settlements have developed new systems of local governance on Lethal, for instance, the reestablished planetary council regularly blank. So, big clue here is regularly. Regularly means something that happens over and over again aka habit. So we want to use the simple present tense measures. Regularly measures matters of trade, defense, and interplanetary relations. And the cool thing about this is you might be little bit tricked because we have the present perfect tense here, right? Have developed. So this might cause you to try and use, you know, either would have measured or will have been measuring using that same have or even going with the past perfect tense. But in fact, we do want to just go with the simple present tense again because it is current and it is habit that is current. This would be another example of when you want to use the simple present tense, but rather than habit, we have fact. You want to use the simple present tense for facts as long as those facts remain true today, should say. Before we go over this one though, let me just real quick show you how the odd verb out trick is going to fail when you do have verb tense question. So if said, you know, he facilitates, he had facilitated, but could also say they had facilitated. So as soon as he and they or she and they both work for an answer, you know that the oddver out trick is not going to work. and you're dealing with verb tense. So we have across many systems independent medical stations rely on bacta healing compound drive from rare algae because it blank. So it's telling us it does this thing. We also have the clue of you know simple present tense rely but it facilitates regeneration. This is fact. There's no reason to complicate things. So, we're just going to go with simple present tense facilitates. Rule number two, use the simple past tense to narrate completed past events. And yes, you're definitely going to need to rely on context to know that we are indeed talking about something from the past. So, in this question, for example, we get long before Frodo's journey. So already we know we're in the past cuz before the elven smith Cella Brimbor secretly forged three rings of power without Sauron's guidance. We also see the simple past tense here. He then blank them to the wisest of his kind. So we know that this is something that is completed from the past. So we're going to go with the simple past tense entrusted. Rule number three is to use the past perfect tense for earlier past actions. That is to say, you're talking about an action that happened in the past before another action that happened in the past. I'll show you what mean. So, in this question, we actually get really similar starting question stem, right? Long before, same thing as the last question, but let's see how it's different from the last question. Long before Awoke from the iceberg and began his journey to master the elements, members of the White Lotus, believing the Avatar cycle was lost. And let's just go ahead and use best practices. We've got some non-essential information here. So, let's eliminate that to make things little bit easier. So, if you remember the last question, we had sort of sequence of events. We had long before this, you know, such and such happened and then, so it was sequence of events. So, we wanted to stay in the simple past tense. But here it's saying long before Ang awoke from the iceberg and began his journey to master the elements, members of the White Lotus blank. So, this is something that happened before this other thing happened, which means we could definitely use the past perfect tense, which is going to be had launched. And in case you're wondering, could we also use the simple past tense launched? You could. You could use the simple past tense here, but the SAT is never going to give you two options that are correct. So, in this case, we don't have to worry about that, right? Our only viable option is choice Rule number four is to simply use the future tense for things that will happen in the future. And do think these are pretty straightforward, but basically there's going to be some context clue telling you that we're referring to the future and we're going to choose the future tense. You could choose electric sacks store enough power to short circuit small machinery, trait researchers have been studying for years. So here's little bit of trickery because we have the past perfect continuous tense, but then it says you blank more in the next section. So this in the next section is telling you that this is going to happen in the future. We're sort of reading some sort of history book about Pikachu or science book about Pikachu. So if we're going to go to the next section, that's not going to happen till the future. So in that case, it would be you will learn more about this in the next section. So when you're looking for context clues, be careful not to just focus on verbs. Sometimes you'll find like prepositional phrase like this one that gives you the clue that you're looking for, telling you where you really should be. Rule number five is to use the infinitive for purpose or goals. Let's take look at this one. For example, we have in the ballot of song birds and snakes, author Suzanne Collins introduces young Coralanus Snow as mentor in the Hunger Games. Blank the origins of his ruthless ideology. So, these questions, if you're native speaker of English, especially, you should be able to just fill in the blank and you're going to be able to tell out loud which one is correct. But if you are not native speaker of English or for some reason this concept just confuses you, try to remember what just said that the infinitive is going to be used for purpose or for goals. So, you know, the infinitive is going to be, you know, to verb. So to reveal in this case and we do have goal. The goal is she introduces him because she wants to reveal the origins of his ruthless ideology. So that is the the purpose or the goal for her introducing him. So then we get you know she introduces him to reveal the origins of his ruthless ideology. Rule number six is to use the present perfect tense to describe things that started in the past and have continued until now. And you notice just used it have continued until now. So looking at this question, we have since the mysterious incident at Hawkins National Library in the early 1980s, local residents blank unexplained phenomena ranging from flickering lights to sightings of creatures believed to originate from an alternate dimension. So we have the word since which is the big giveaway that whatever action occurred, it has occurred until now. that's what since means, right? It has been happening since the mysterious incident at Hawkins National Library. So, this is key clue here. And then our verb is reported. So, since the subject is local residents plural, rather than saying has reported, we would say have reported. So, choice is our answer here. And again, this is something that has happened since the mysterious incident at Hawkins National Library and it continues until today. That's why we go with the present perfect tense. And finally, rule number seven is to use the base verb. That is just your standard unmodified version of the verb after the word would, could, or any other modal or helping verb. In our example here, we see to shield Hyrule from Ganid's advancing forces, the sages channeled their power into magical seal that if broken would unleash chaos. And so we have our modal verb would, also known as helping verb, would unleash, and would disrupt. We're going to use would for not just this verb, but the verb that follows. Basically, it gets to command all of the verbs in compound list of verbs. So, choice is going to be our answer. What you just learned is just small sliver of what teach in my full English bundle. These three courses are designed to teach you everything you need to know to get perfect 800 in the English section. They also include access to over 500 original practice questions. I'll go ahead and leave discount for you in the description of this