Verb Form

To check if a verb for question might be testing you on which answer choice serves as the proper part of speech, look for one or both of the following in the answer choices:

• The word "to" in front of a verb
• A verb ending in "-ing" that doesn't come right after another verb

When you add the word "to" in front of a verb, it becomes what's known as an infinitive verb, which does not act as a main verb. Depending on the context, it may act as a noun, adjective, or adverb. For example, in the sentence "To err is human", "to err" is an infinitive verb that acts as a noun, representing the act of erring. Also, in the sentence "I need to win", "to win" acts as a noun because it represents a thing that is needed. In the sentence "I went to buy bananas", "to buy" acts as an adverb because it describes the reason the subject "went". An infinitive verb can also act as an adjective, describing a noun. For example, in the sentence "The book to read is on the shelf", "to read" acts as an adjective describing the book.

When a verb ends in "-ed", it can sometimes act as an adjective. It might be a straightforward adjective placed right before the noun it describes, or it might begin a non-essential or essential clause. Here are some examples:

• "The deflated balloon no longer floats."
  • "deflated" is an adjective describing the state of the balloon
• "The bride, dressed in a beautiful white dress, walked down the aisle."
  • "dressed" leads off a non-essential clause adding more information about the bride
• "I'm not letting the dog covered in mud in the house."
  • "covered" leads off the essential clause "covered in mud", which specifies which dog is being referred to

On these types of questions, generally you will be able to intuitively tell which answer choice sounds right in the sentence. But hopefully the examples above will help you understand how to check for the different roles that a verb can play in its different forms. One thing to check for is if the sentence already has a main verb. If not, then the answer choice should have the verb in a form that can act as a main verb. Even if it does have a main verb already, sometimes a subject can perform multiple actions in a sentence (e.g. "The boxer bobbed and weaved to avoid his opponent's punches"), so don't jump right to assuming the blank can't act as a main verb.

If the question is testing you on subject-verb agreement, then either 3 answer choices will use plural forms of the verb and one will be singular, or 3 answer choices will use singular forms of the verb and one will be plural. An easy way to check if this is the case is to plug in a singular pronoun before the verb in each answer choice (I generally like to use "it") and see it sounds right. If plugging in "it" sounds right, then the verb is singular. If plugging in "it" sounds wrong, then the verb is plural. So, if you perform the "it" test and find that there is a single outlier (either there is only one singular verb or there are exactly 3 singular verbs), then there's a good chance that the question is testing you on subject-verb agreement, and that the outlier is the right answer. Still, I would double check by identifying the subject and making sure it does indeed match the verb. If you don't find a single outlier, then the question must be testing for verb tense rather than subject-verb agreement, so you can move on to checking for verb tense.

If the "it" test gave you a single outlier, then that outlier is most likely the right answer; if you're pressed for time then you might want to just select the outlier and move one, but it's generally good practice to double check by identifying the subject and making sure it matches the verb. Look at all the nouns earlier in the passage, and ask yourself if that is the specific noun that would be performing the verb in the answer choice.

To determine which tense the verb should be in, we'll want to look for clues in the sentence or in previous sentences.

• Other verbs in the sentence or in previous sentences
  • Generally, you'll want the tense of the verb to match the tense of the other verbs in the sentence, or in the previous sentence.
  • But it's always possible that the tense can change within a sentence or between sentences, so don't count on this 100%.
• Reference to years or time periods
  • If the sentence starts off with "In 1905, ", for example, then we have a good idea that this sentence will be in the past tense.
• Transition phrases that indicate time shifts
  • Phrases like "Next, ", "Then, ", "Subsequently, ", etc. indicate that whatever follows takes place after what was mentioned previously. So if it was talking in present tense before that, it's probably shifting to future tense.
  • Phrases like "Previously, ", "Historically, ", "In the past, ", "Until recently, ", etc. indicate that whatever follows takes in the past tense.
  • Phrases like "Now, ", "Currently, ", "Presently, ", etc. indicate that whatever follows takes place in the present tense.

While the main 3 tenses are past, present, and future, there are a number of more complicated tenses, like past perfect, future perfect, etc. Generally, the right answer will be a simpler tense, so if you're unsure between options like "had been helping" and "helped", if the simpler one (helped) sounds ok, go with that one. This isn't always the case though, so if the slightly more complicated form sounds clearly better to you, go with your gut; just don't unnecessarily complicate things.