While verbs are one of the most troublesome grammatical areas, they give you a lot of clues and help you eliminate choices effectively in the Improving Sentences section. In this section, most questions ask multiple aspects of grammatical accuracy and effective sentence construction. You will be able to eliminate a considerable number of choices throughout this section simply by analyzing the verbs.

The Improving Sentences section does test common mistakes appear in Identifying Sentence Errors. Thus, read my articles posted on 19 and 26 Jul – “A Meaning Approach to Learning Verbs” again before you move on to the following.

4.  Verb forms

4a. Missing finite verb

I cannot stress enough that it is crucial to identify if a sentence is grammatically complete, especially to see if any finite verbs are missing in the clauses. It is often the first thing you should check when the underlined part includes a verb. This helps you eliminate a number of choices quickly. I have talked about how to check if a clause misses a finite verb in a previous article published on 30 Aug – “The Anatomy of a Complete Sentence”. Read it again if you need to. Here are more examples to illustrate how useful and important it is to check if a finite verb is missing.

4b. Wrong tense

a) Consistency in tense

Similar to Identifying Sentence Errors, students need to check if the tense is used consistently throughout the sentence. Remember when both actions happen in the same time frame, same tense should be used. Unnecessary switch of tense will cause confusion.

b) Tense and aspect choices

Students also need to use grammatical knowledge and common sense to see if the tense choice is correct. Focus first to check if the choice of present, past or future is correct. Then, check whether simple, continuous or perfect should be used.

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(Next Tue: Identifying Sentence Errors – 4.Verb forms cont'd)