Verb tense consistency on the ACT

Keep the tense the same as the writing around it unless something in the passage tells you the timeline has actually changed. That one sentence covers most tense questions on ACT English. The catch is that the evidence you need is almost never inside the underlined portion, so the skill is really about where you look.

Consistency is the default

A passage picks a tense and stays there. If a paragraph is narrating past events, every verb in that stretch should be past tense. If it is describing how something works in general, present tense holds. When an underlined verb suddenly jumps to a different tense than its neighbors, that jump is the error.

• Incorrect: She spent the summer restoring the boat, sanded the hull by hand, and then paints the trim in October.
• Correct: She spent the summer restoring the boat, sanded the hull by hand, and then painted the trim in October.

Nothing in that sentence signals a move into the present, so the shift to paints is unjustified.

Read the sentences around the underline

Here is the habit that fixes most tense misses. Before you evaluate the answer choices, read the full sentence before the underlined verb and the full sentence after it. Find one verb in each that is not underlined. Those verbs are your reference points, because the test cannot change them.

If the surrounding verbs are traveled and recorded, your answer is past tense. If they are travels and records, your answer is present. Students who miss these questions almost always decided based on how the underlined sentence sounded alone, which is exactly the trap.

When the timeline really does change

Sometimes a shift is correct, and time words tell you so. Words and phrases like by the time, previously, last spring, today, now, and next year license a change in tense.

• Correct: The archive stores thousands of maps, but before the renovation it kept most of them in an unheated basement.

Present tense for what is true now, past tense for what came before. The shift is fine because before the renovation earns it.

Simple past versus present perfect

Simple past describes a finished action at a finished time: He wrote three drafts last winter. Present perfect, formed with has or have plus a past participle, describes something that started in the past and still matters or continues: He has written three drafts since January.

• Incorrect: Since the trail reopened, hikers reported seeing far more owls.
• Correct: Since the trail reopened, hikers have reported seeing far more owls.

The word since is a strong hint that the situation is ongoing. On the other hand, a specific finished date pushes you toward simple past: In 1997, the museum acquired the collection, not has acquired.

Irregular past participles

Perfect tenses need the participle form, and irregular verbs are where that goes wrong. Had went and have wrote show up in answer choices because they sound like something people say.

• Incorrect: By the time the storm cleared, the crew had went back to the harbor.
• Correct: By the time the storm cleared, the crew had gone back to the harbor.

A short list is worth memorizing: go, went, gone; write, wrote, written; see, saw, seen; begin, began, begun; drink, drank, drunk; take, took, taken; break, broke, broken. The third form is the one that follows has, have, or had.

Traps to expect

• An underlined verb that sounds natural in isolation but breaks from the tense established two sentences earlier.
• Answer choices that all use the same tense except one, which is usually a hint that tense is not the issue and something else, like subject-verb agreement, is being tested.
• Wordy constructions like would have began or was being written dressed up to look sophisticated.
• A time marker placed far from the underline, so you only catch it if you read the whole sentence.

A two-minute self-check

Pick a passage you have already done and, for every tense question you missed, write down the non-underlined verb closest to the underline. If that verb matches the answer key, you now know the question was answerable without any grammar knowledge at all, just careful reading. Do that for five misses and the pattern will stick.

For repetition, thirty-six has concept quizzes that group tense questions together so you can practice hunting for the reference verb over and over. When tense feels solid, keep building with a broader plan for raising your English score, and since there is no penalty for a wrong answer, never leave a tense question blank while you deliberate.

This article offers general ACT prep guidance. The ACT can change from year to year, including its format, scoring, policies, test dates, and fees, so always confirm the latest details on the official ACT website at act.org before you make decisions. ACT® is a registered trademark of ACT, Inc. thirty-six is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ACT.