Verb Tense — Stay Consistent

Do not switch tenses within a sentence or passage unless there's a logical reason.

Wrong: "She studied for three hours and then goes to sleep." (past then present)

Right: "She studied for three hours and then went to sleep."

Tenses the SAT tests:

Simple past: "She studied."

Present perfect: "She has studied." (started in past, relevant now)

Past perfect: "She had studied before the test began." (past before another past)

SAT signal words:

"Since" / "for" — present perfect (has/have + past participle)

"Before" / "by the time" — past perfect (had + past participle)

"Currently" / "now" — present tense

Strategy: Read the surrounding sentences. Match the tense to the context. Look for time-marker words.

Reference:

Wikipedia: Grammatical Tense

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense