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Thu 29 Jul, 2004 09:08 pm
(1)
17. When Gregory arrived at the disco, Hania ..... .
a) already left
b) has already left
c) had already left
I chose b, because I thought the present perfect tense "has already left" happened before "arrived at" which is past tense. But the correct answer is c. Why?
(2) 34. There's no point .... staying up all night if your exam is tomorrow.
on
with
in
I chose "on", but the correct answer is "in". Why?
"Gregory arrived" is past tense, so if you want to express something had happened before then you'd use past perfect, not present perfect.
You would use present perfect (in expressing something happening before then) only if the first verb had been present tense, but it wasn't.
When Gregory arrives at the disco, Hania has already left. Pres. Perf.
When Gregory arrived at the disco, Hania had already left. Past Perf.
Is the distinction clear?
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As for the second question, the expression simply goes "there's no point in..."
There's no expression: "There's no point on..." This is when you just have to memorize which preposition sounds natural (one of the hardest part of language for non-native speakers). Using "on" sounds very incorrect.
Yep, Levi is absolutely right on this. I was going to make the same distinctions, but Levi beat me to it. Welcome to A2K Levi!
Levi took the words out of Cavfancier's mouth. But Cav was so humble to claim that Levi beat him to it.
Thank you both.
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