yourpal wrote:
thebigr002 wrote:
Question source : Ultimate GMAT Grammar by gmatclub
5. The company _____________________ (build) a new store.
OA.
5. The company is building (build) a new store.
what's wrong with -
5. The company built (build) a new store.
5. The company has built (build) a new store.
7. My little brother ____________________ (eat) all the candy! It’s all gone!
OA
7. My little brother has eaten (eat) all the candy! It’s all gone!
what's wrong with -
7. My little brother ate (eat) all the candy! It’s all gone!
kindly explain what is grammatically wrong in the alternate answers that i have written?
interesting.
both seem to be correct.
yourpal has it right – there's actually nothing
grammatically incorrect with any of the alternate answers.
To simplify things, consider the following sentences:
The dog
barks.
The dog
barked.
The dog
will bark.
The dog
has barked.
The dog
had barked.
The dog
will have barked.
The dog
is barking.
The dog
was barking.
The dog
will be barkingThe dog
has been barking.
The dog
had been barking.
The dog
will have been barking.
All twelve of these examples are
grammatically correct!
I've placed the example sentences into four different groups – the simple tenses, the perfect tenses, the progressive tenses, and the perfect progressive tenses. The three examples within each group are the present, past, and future examples of each (e.g., "had been barking" is past perfect progressive).
This is actually why I believe Verb Tense to be one of the more difficult topics tested on Sentence Correction; it often involved
meaning issues, rather than straightforward grammar rules.
Simple tenses should be used as the default. Each other group has special requirements.
Perfect tenses are used to convey a relationship between two different time points. Past perfect is used between two distinct times in the past, present perfect is used between a point in the past and now, and future perfect is used to indicate the action will be completed at some particular time in the future.
Progressive tenses are used to indicate an
ongoing action.
Perfect progressive tenses are very rare on the GMAT, but are used to indicate an ongoing action between two distinct time points.
Let's take a closer look at your examples:
5. The company _____________________ (build) a new store.
is building ==> The action is ongoing; they are in the process of building the new store.
has built ==> The action began in the past and was completed just now.
7. My little brother ____________________ (eat) all the candy! It’s all gone!
has eaten ==> Your brother started eating the candy in the past and just finished now.
at ==> He ate it all at one point in the past.
Both your answers and the official answers here are completely correct! On the actual GMAT, the sentence would be more complex and would provide you with some clue as to the appropriate meaning you need to convey.
_________________