Grammar: Tenses and Agreement

Grammar: Tenses and Agreement

🟢 Lite — Quick Review (1h–1d)

Rapid summary for last-minute revision before your exam.

Tenses locate an action or state on a timeline (past, present, future) and are built from four aspects — Simple, Continuous (Progressive), Perfect, and Perfect Continuous — giving the standard 12-form grid. The Simple Present uses a bare verb but adds -s/-es with third-person singular subjects (She writes; He watches). The Simple Past uses the V2 form (They walked; He spoke). The Simple Future uses shall/will + base verb (I shall return). Continuous tenses pair is/am/are/was/were with the -ing form; Perfect tenses pair has/have/had with the past participle (V3). Subject-Verb Agreement (concord) demands that a singular subject take a singular verb and a plural subject a plural verb. NABTEB candidates should memorise the third-person -s rule, the auxiliary set, and the indefinite-pronoun trap (Everyone is here).

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🟡 Standard — Regular Study (2d–2mo)

Standard content for students with a few days to months.

The Twelve-Tense Framework

English verbs flex along two axes: time (past, present, future) and aspect (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous). Aspect tells the reader whether the action is a completed fact, an ongoing process, a prior event with present relevance, or a duration linking two time points. The matrix below summarises the construction:

Time	Simple	Continuous	Perfect	Perfect Continuous
Present	writes	is writing	has written	has been writing
Past	wrote	was writing	had written	had been writing
Future	will write	will be writing	will have written	will have been writing

Core Constructions

• Simple Present carries habitual or timeless truth. Third-person singular adds -s after sibilants (passes, washes), -es after -o/-s/-sh/-ch/-x, and -ies after consonant + y (carry → carries). Auxiliaries does/do invert for questions and negate.
• Simple Past and Past Participle are formed regularly by adding -ed; the ~250 irregular verbs (go/went/gone, see/saw/seen, be/was/were/been) must be memorised.
• Future uses will/shall + base; going to + base signals prior plan; present continuous signals fixed arrangement (I am meeting him tomorrow).
• Continuous aspect requires an action verb — stative verbs (know, belong, own) resist the -ing form.
• Present Perfect connects past to present (I have finished); it does not accept specific past-time adverbs such as yesterday, last week, in 2015.

Subject-Verb Agreement Rules

A verb agrees with its grammatical subject, not the nearest noun. Key principles:

1. Singular subject → singular verb; plural subject → plural verb. The plural marker -s sits on the noun, so the verb stays bare (The dogs run).
2. Subjects joined by and normally take a plural verb: Tom and Jane are here. Exceptions: when the pair forms a single unit (Bread and butter is his diet) or refers to a single person (The poet and novelist is arriving).
3. Subjects joined by or/nor/either…or/neither…nor take a verb that matches the nearest subject: Either John or Mary is coming.
4. Indefinite pronouns (each, every, anyone, somebody, nobody, everyone, either, neither) take singular verbs: Everyone has signed.
5. Collective nouns (team, jury, family, committee) take a singular verb in Standard British English: The team is winning. The plural is permitted only when members act individually.
6. Relative clauses: the verb agrees with the antecedent of who/which/that, not the relative pronoun itself: He is one of the boys who are absent.

NABTEB Question Patterns

The 4%-weighted Grammar section typically tests tenses through gap-filling, error correction, and sentence-completion items. Common traps include tense mixing across clauses, misuse of since/for with Perfect Continuous, and the singular verb required after one of the… who.

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🔴 Extended — Deep Study (3mo+)

Comprehensive coverage for students on a longer study timeline.

Edge Cases in Tense Selection

• Sequence-of-tenses: a past-tense reporting verb shifts the reported action back one tense — direct “I am tired” becomes indirect He said (that) he was tired. The Past Perfect is required when the reported event preceded another past event (She said she had already left).
• Time-clause harmony: future meaning in subordinate clauses introduced by when, before, after, until, as soon as, while is carried by the Simple Present, not will: When he arrives, I will leave. NABTEB essay and comprehension questions frequently violate this rule, so learners should mark such clauses in red during proofreading.
• Conditional mood: Type 2 uses Simple Past + would for present unreal (If I were you…); Type 3 uses Past Perfect + would have for past unreal (If he had studied, he would have passed).
• Stative vs dynamic verbs: have, know, love, seem, believe do not normally take the Continuous aspect. Saying I am knowing the answer is ungrammatical in standard English.

Edge Cases in Agreement

• Amounts, distances, and periods take a singular verb when treated as a unit: Twenty kilometres is a long walk. When the focus is on individual items, the verb is plural: Twenty kilometres of pipes have been laid.
• Titles, names of countries, and gerund phrases take singular verbs: “Hamlet” is a tragedy; Running twenty laps is exhausting.
• There is / There are: the verb agrees with the first noun after there: There are two problems; There is one problem.
• Each / Every + noun + singular verb, even when the noun is plural: Each of the students has submitted a form.
• A number of takes a plural verb (A number of books are missing), whereas the number of takes singular (The number of applicants is small).

Common Mistakes NABTEB Candidates Make

1. Tense drift inside essays — opening in Past and slipping into Present.
2. Treating since 1999 as requiring Simple Past instead of Present Perfect.
3. Writing The team are playing well under a standard-British marking scheme.
4. Confusing less (uncountable) with fewer (countable plural) and the verb number that follows.
5. Overusing will in time clauses (When I will see him…).

Worked Micro-Example

Identify and correct the errors: “Each of the boys have brought their book, and they was playing since morning.”

• Each of the boys has (singular subject, singular verb).
• “Each … his book” (pronoun agreement with singular each).
• They were playing (plural subject requires were).
• have been playing (since demands Perfect Continuous for an action begun in the past and still continuing).

Practice Prompts

1. Rewrite in reported speech: The teacher said, “I have marked the scripts and I will return them tomorrow.”
2. Fill the blanks correctly: Neither the principal nor the teachers ___ (be) present; every student ___ (have) signed the register.

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