another quiz done and ready

The quiz for Verb Tenses, Part 1 (Simple/Compound Tenses + Affirmative, Negative, Interrogative) is now up. Try it out and contact me if you see any problems.

Sample question with correct answers and reasoning:

Question 2

The conditional-past tense

is also called the conditional perfect.can be seen in a sentence like Would she have driven so fast had she seen the curve?uses would have + participle.is visible in the sentence Marcel will have finished his painting by next week.

REASONING: The question is asking about the conditional-past tense, so you obviously have to know what that is. The conditional tense uses the modal auxiliary would + the bare infinitive. So I would go is in the conditional tense. The conditional-past tense uses would have + participle. So I wouldn't have done that is in the conditional-past tense, a tense used for a hypothetical/unreal/alternative past.

1st possible answer: Yes. For completed actions where the helping verb is some form of have, this can also be called a type of perfect tense.

2nd possible answer: Yes. You can see that Would... have driven fits the formula for the conditional-past tense, which, as mentioned above, is used for a hypothetical or unreal or alternative past.

3rd possible answer: Yes, as explained above.

4th possible answer: No. The will have + participle tense is the future perfect, used for a completed action in the future. This is a form of future tense. Example: By next Friday, we will have destroyed 30,000 of Hillary's files.

NB: Why do I put so much emphasis on terminology? The terminology is important because it becomes a shorthand for the already-explained grammar point, thus saving me the need to re-explain the same grammar point repeatedly. It also allows me to stack knowledge upon knowledge, which is fine as long as the student is actually studying and internalizing the terms in question as we move through the curriculum. If the student makes no effort to remember any of these terms, it's going to become increasingly hard for him/her to keep up with later lessons, and as the terms accumulate, future lessons will become a lot more information-dense. So if you're a learner, my advice to you is: Keep up! And don't ever become mentally lazy. There's a reason why sloth is a mortal sin in Catholicism.