About the ged writting exam 3 pptx

to go to be to dream to admire To indicate tenses of regular verbs when the action of the verb did occur, is occurring, or will occur, we use the base form of the verb and add the approp

 Ve r b s

Verbs are the “heart” of a sentence They express the

action or state of being of the subject, telling us what the

subject is doing, thinking, or feeling

She yelled out the window (action)

I am happy to be here (state of being)

We feel very lucky to be alive (state of being)

I should ask Winston what he thinks (action)

Verbs have five basic forms:

1 Infinitive: This is base form of the verb plus the

word to.

to go to be to dream to admire

To indicate tenses of regular verbs (when the

action of the verb did occur, is occurring, or will

occur), we use the base form of the verb and add

the appropriate tense endings

2 Present tense: This verb form expresses what is

happening now

I am sorry you are not coming with us.

Jessica does yoga every morning.

The present tense of regular verbs is formed as

follows:

first person base form base form

second person base form base form

third person base form + base form

(he/she/it/they) –s/–es (believes) (believe)

3 Present participle: This verb form describes

what is happening now It ends in –ing and is

accompanied by a helping verb such as is.

Jessica is doing a difficult yoga pose.

Note: Words that end in –ing don’t always

function as verbs Sometimes, they act as nouns

and are called gerunds They can also function as adjectives (called participial phrases).

Present participle (verb): He is loading the boxes into the car.

Gerund (noun): This parking area is for loading only.

Participial phrase (adjective): The loading dock is littered with

paper.

(You will learn more about gerunds later in this section.)

4 Past tense: This verb form expresses what

hap-pened in the past

It snowed yesterday in the mountains.

I felt better after I stretched and did some deep breathing.

5 Past participle: This verb form describes an

action that happened in the past It is used with a

helping verb, such as has, have, or had.

It has not snowed all winter.

I have waited as long as I can.

Regular Verbs

Most English verbs are “regular”—they follow a standard set of rules for forming the present participle, past tense, and past participle

■ The present participle is formed by adding –ing.

■ The past tense and past participle are formed by

adding –ed.

■ If the verb ends with the letter e, just add d.

■ If the verb ends with the letter y, for the past tense, change the y to an i and add –ed.

Some examples appear on the next page

A handful of English verbs have the same present,

past, and past participle form Here is a partial list of

those verbs and several examples:

SAME PRESENT, PAST, AND

PAST PARTICIPLE FORM

Present: I read the newspaper every

morning.

Past: I read the newspaper yesterday

morning.

Past participle: I have read the newspaper every

morning since 1992.

Irregular Verbs

About 150 English verbs are irregular: They don’t follow

the standard rules for changing tense We can divide

these irregular verbs into three categories:

1 irregular verbs with the same past and past

par-ticiple forms

2 irregular verbs with three distinct forms

3 irregular verbs with the same present and past

participle forms

The following table lists examples of irregular verbs

PAST

Same past and past participle forms:

Three distinct forms:

spring sprang sprung

Same present and past participle forms:

overcome overcame overcome

In English, as in many other languages, the essential verb to be is highly irregular:

Helping verbs (also called auxiliary verbs) are essential to

clear communication They help indicate exactly when

an action took place or will take place They also suggest

very specific meanings, such as the subject’s ability or intention to do something The following table lists the helping verbs, their forms, and their meanings

PRESENT

will, shall would intention She will meet us at the hotel.

They said they would call first.

can could ability I can be there in ten minutes.

Rose could find only one glove.

may, might, can, could could, might permission May I tag along?

Could we get together after the meeting?

should should + have + recommendation We should leave before the snow starts.

past participle They should have known better.

must, have (to) had (to) necessity I must go to the dentist.

I had to have two teeth pulled.

should should + have + expectation They should be on the next train.

past participle They should have been on that train.

may, might might + have + possibility They may be lost.

past participle They might have gotten lost.

Helping Verbs

Subjunctive Mood

The subjunctive mood is one of the verb forms we often

forget to use in conversation, and therefore, we often

neglect to use it correctly in our writing Like helping

verbs, the subjunctive is used to express a specific

mean-ing, indicating something that is wished for or that is

contrary to fact It is formed by using were instead of was,

as in the following examples:

If she were a little more experienced, she would

get the promotion (She is not a little more

experienced.)

If I were rich, I would travel the world

(Unfortu-nately, I am not rich.)

Troublesome Verbs

Three verb pairs are particularly troublesome, even for

native English speakers:

lie/lay

sit/set

rise/raise

The key to knowing which verb to use is

remember-ing which verb takes an object In each pair, one verb is

transitive—an object “receives” the action—while the

other is intransitive—the subject itself “receives” or

per-forms the action For example, lie is an action that the

subject of the sentence “performs” on itself: I will lie

down The transitive verb lay, on the other hand, is an

action that the subject of the sentence performs upon an

object: I lay the baby down in the crib In the following

examples, the subjects are in bold, and the objects are underlined

lie: to rest or recline (intransitive—subject only)

lay: to put or place (transitive—needs an object)

I will lie down for a while.

Will you please lay the papers down on the

table?

sit: to rest (intransitive—subject only)

set: to put or place (transitive—needs an object)

Why don’t we sit down and talk this over?

He will set the record straight.

rise: to go up (intransitive—subject only)

raise: to move something up (transitive—needs

an object)

The sun will rise at 5:48 A M tomorrow.

He raised the rent to $750 per month.

The basic forms of these verbs can also be a bit tricky The following table shows how each verb is conjugated

Now that you have reviewed verb conjugation and

tense formation, it’s time to talk about two key issues

with verb usage: consistent tense and subject–verb

agreement

Consistent Tense

One of the quickest ways to confuse readers, especially if

you are telling a story or describing an event, is to shift

verb tenses To help readers understand when actions

occur, make sure verbs are consistent in tense If you

begin telling the story the present tense, for example,

keep the action in the present tense; do not inadvertently

mix tenses as you write Be clear about changing tense,

and make sure that it makes sense in the context of the

story (For example, a story that takes place in the

pres-ent tense might use the past tense to talk about actions

that happened before the story started.) Otherwise, you

will leave your readers wondering whether actions are

taking place in the present or took place in the past

Incorrect: She left the house and forgets her keys

again.

Correct: She left the house and forgot her keys

again.

Incorrect: When we work together, we got better

results.

Correct: When we work together, we get better

results OR When we worked together, we got better results.

Agreement

In English grammar, agreement means that sentence

ele-ments are balanced Verbs, for example, should agree

with their subjects: If the subject is singular, the verb

should be singular; if the subject is plural, the verb

should be plural

Incorrect: They doesn’t have a chance against

Coolidge.

(plural subject, singular verb) Correct: They don’t have a chance against

Coolidge.

(plural subject, plural verb)

Of course, to make sure subjects and verbs agree, you need to be clear about who or what is the subject of the sentence For example, what is the subject in the follow-ing sentence, and which is the correct verb?

Only one of the students [was/were] officially reg-istered for the class.

In this sentence, the subject is one, not students Though it seems like students are performing the action

of being completed, students can’t be the subject because

it is part of a prepositional phrase (of the students), and

subjects are never found in prepositional phrases.

Thus, the verb must be singular (was, not were) to agree

with one It is only one of the students—not all—who

was registered, so again, the verb must be singular Here are some other important guidelines for subject– verb agreement:

■ If a compound, singular subject is connected by

and, the verb must be plural.

Both Vanessa and Xui want to join the committee.

■ If a compound, singular subject is connected by

or or nor, the verb must be singular.

Neither Vanessa nor Xiu wants to join the committee.

■ If one plural and one singular subject are

con-nected by or or nor, the verb agrees with the

clos-est subject

Neither Vanessa nor the treasurers want to join the committee.

Neither the treasurers nor Vanessa wants to join the committee.

■ In an inverted sentence, the subject comes after the

verb, so the first step is to clearly identify the

sub-ject (Sentences that begin with there is and there

are, for example, and questions are inverted

sen-tences.) Once you correctly identify the subject, then you can make sure your verb agrees The correct subjects and verbs are underlined below

Incorrect: There’s plenty of reasons to go.

Incorrect: What is the side effects of this

medication?

Correct: What are the side effects of this

medication?

Gerunds and Infinitives

Gerunds and infinitives have given many students of

Eng-lish a grammar headache, but they are not so difficult to

master Gerunds, as we noted earlier, look like verbs

because they end in –ing, but they actually function as

nouns in sentences:

Tracy loves camping.

Here, the “action” Tracy performs is loves The thing

(noun) she enjoys is camping In the following sentence,

however, camping is the action Tracy performs, so it is

functioning as a verb, not as a gerund:

Tracy is camping in the Pine Barrens next week.

Words ending in –ing can also function as adjectives:

Some of our camping gear needs to be replaced

before our trip.

Here’s another example of how the same word can

have three different functions:

Verb: He is screaming loudly.

Gerund (noun): That screaming is driving me

crazy!

Adjective: The screaming boy finally stopped.

What this means is that you can’t count on word

end-ings to determine a word’s part of speech Lots of words

that look like verbs may not be It’s how they function in

the sentence that counts

Infinitives are the base (unconjugated) form of the

verb preceded by to: to be, to delay, to manage They are

often part of a verb chain, but they are not the main verb

(main action) of a sentence:

Priya likes to write poems.

In this example, likes is the main verb; what Priya likes

In many situations, you may be uncertain whther to use

an infinitive or a gerund Which is correct: I like to swim

or I like swimming? In this case, both are correct; like,

hate, and other verbs that express preference can be

fol-lowed by either a gerund or infinitive But other verbs can only be followed by one or the other Here are a few helpful guidelines:

■ Always use a gerund after a preposition.

Keza thought that by taking the train, she would save money and time.

Noriel was afraid of offending her host, but she couldn’t eat the dinner.

■ Always use a gerund after the following verbs:

appreciate enjoy put off

can’t help finish recall

consider imagine resist

discuss postpone tolerate

We should discuss buying a new computer.

I am going to quit smoking.

■ In general, use an infinitive after these verbs:

agree decide need refuse

ask expect offer venture

bother hope pretend wish

claim manage promise

Aswad promises to be back by noon.