Use tenses accurately and consistently, and correct unintended tense shifts in editing

What this dot point is asking

Tenses tell the reader when something happens: in the past, the present or the future. The skill at O-Level is twofold: choosing the right tense for the time you mean, and keeping tense consistent so you do not drift between past and present by accident. The Editing task is full of tense errors, and tense slips quietly cost the language mark in writing. This dot point covers the common tenses, the time signals that tell you which to use, and how to catch unintended shifts.

The answer

Match the tense to the time

The basic move is to match the verb to when the action happens:

• Simple past for finished past actions: "I walked to school yesterday."
• Simple present for habits and general truths: "I walk to school every day."
• Present continuous for actions happening now: "I am walking to school."
• Future for what has not happened yet: "I will walk to school tomorrow."

Time signals in the sentence point to the right tense: "yesterday", "last week" and "ago" call for the past; "every day", "usually" and "always" call for the present habit; "tomorrow", "next week" and "soon" call for the future.

Use the perfect tenses for sequence

The perfect tenses show one action completed before another:

• Present perfect links the past to now: "I have finished my homework" (and it is done now). Note it does not go with a finished-time phrase, so "I have finished an hour ago" is wrong; use the simple past: "I finished an hour ago".
• Past perfect shows the earlier of two past actions: "By the time we arrived, the train had already left." The leaving happened before the arriving, so it takes "had left".

These tenses are tested often because they require thinking about the order of events, not just the fact that something is past.

Keep tense consistent

Once you choose a main tense for a passage, stay in it unless there is a reason to change. A story told in the past should not slip into the present: "He opened the door and walks inside" is wrong; it should be "walked inside". This drift between past and present is the single most common tense error in extended writing, and the Editing task plants it deliberately. Decide your main tense, then keep every verb in it unless the meaning genuinely calls for a different time.

Editing for tense

When editing, first work out the main tense of the passage from its time signals. Then read verb by verb, checking each one fits that tense or has a clear reason not to. Pay special attention to sentences with two actions (which may need a perfect tense for sequence) and to any verb that suddenly jumps to a different time from the verbs around it.

Examples in context

Example 1. The accidental present-tense slip in a story. A candidate writing a past-tense narrative gets caught up in an exciting moment and writes: "The dog ran towards me. I freeze. It jumps up and I fall backwards." The drama is good, but "freeze", "jumps" and "fall" have slipped into the present while the story is in the past. Corrected to "I froze. It jumped up and I fell backwards", the passage keeps its consistent past tense. This slip happens most at tense moments, which is why proofreading the exciting paragraphs of a story for tense is worthwhile.

Example 2. The perfect tense fixing a muddled sequence. "When I reached the platform, the train left" suggests, oddly, that the train left at the moment of reaching, or even after. What the writer means is that the train had gone before they arrived, so the past perfect makes the order clear: "When I reached the platform, the train had left." The past perfect ("had left") signals the earlier of the two past actions, removing the confusion. Recognising when two past actions need ordering is the key to using this tense well.

Try this

Q1. Correct this sentence: "Last night she watch a film and goes to bed early." [2 marks]

• Cue. Both verbs must be past to match "Last night": "Last night she watched a film and went to bed early."

Q2. Explain when to use the past perfect, with an example. [2 marks]

• Cue. Use the past perfect ("had" plus the past participle) for the earlier of two past actions, to show one happened before another: "By the time the guests arrived, she had cooked dinner" (the cooking came before the arriving).

Q3. Explain how to check a story for unintended tense shifts. [2 marks]

• Cue. Decide the main tense of the story (usually the simple past), then read through verb by verb, checking each one is in that tense unless there is a deliberate reason to change; watch the exciting paragraphs, where slips into the present are most likely.