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ACT English 3.4 Grammar and Usage 416 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Grammar and Usage Drill 3, Problem 4. Which choice uses the correct tenses for this sentence?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by movie theatres. We know you really want

00:07

to get some Junior Mints, but we're running late, so you might have to make some concessions.

00:14

How would you correct the following sentence, if it needs correcting at all?

00:17

Before we had left for the movie theater, we had eaten dinner.

00:26

The past perfect tense, or the super past tense, is used to compare two events that

00:31

started and ended in the past.

00:34

So we're looking for an answer choice that uses "had" in front of one past participle

00:38

and not the other, to show that one event occurred before the other one.

00:43

(A) isn't correct, because the original sentence goes overboard with the "hads."

00:47

Take it easy, (A). The Buddha says that moderation is the key to non-suffering.

00:52

Choice (B) puts both parts of the sentence in the past tense.

00:55

Since we're looking for one of these to be in the past perfect tense, however, we can

00:59

take it out of the running.

01:01

While the last choice had too many "hads," this one has none at all.

01:05

Well, (C) does have only one "had," but it comes in the wrong place.

01:10

In this sentence, eating dinner comes before leaving for the movie theater, so we need

01:14

the "had" to be connected with "eaten" rather than "left."

01:17

Choice (D) delivers exactly what we were talking about, making it the correct answer.

01:21

When we eat before going to the movies, we always save room for popcorn.

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