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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the future tense. We'd be less tense about

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the future if we knew whether the "flying cars" thing was really happening.

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

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By the time I will go to South Dakota next year, I will visit 27 states.

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OK, the phrase "by the time" actually requires the present tense even though the thing it's

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talking about is happening in the future.

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This is because by next year, the trip will be happening in the present. Mind-bending

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stuff, we know.

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This makes both (A) and (D) incorrect, because they each try to use the future tense too

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soon in the sentence.

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Both (B) and (C) get it right by using the present tense in the first part of the sentence,

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so we'll have to look to the second part to decide between them.

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All right, looks like we're going to need to use the future perfect tense here.

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See, achieving the momentous landmark of visiting 27 states occurs between now and the South Dakota trip.

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Since we're talking about something that has finished occurring by a specified point in

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the future, the future perfect tense is the way to go.

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Therefore we can ditch (B) and go with (C), because the presence of the helping verb "have"

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places (C) securely in the future perfect tense.

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Let's see...things to see in South Dakota... Mount Rushmore...aaaand...uh...Mount Rushmore...

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