GMAT Subjunctives Part 1 of 8: Wish You Were Here

by Jim Jacobson on November 18th, 2009
2 comments
Jim Jacobson is a GMAT verbal expert who lives and works in Madison, WI. Visit Grockit's Learning Center for more test prep advice.
The subjunctive usually refers to things that have not happened yet, whether we really want them to happen (commands, wishes) or not (suppositions, conditional statements, fearing). The subjunctive appears in very specific contexts; we shall cover the most common ones, and some of the less common ones!  Please note that the subjunctive on the GMAT is not common! If your Verbal scores are low, direct your studies toward:
  • subject-verb agreement
  • verb tense, comparisons
  • parallelism (the GMAT loves parallelism so much, the two of them should get married)

The subjunctive exists in many languages, though other languages use it more than we do in English, where it’s a somewhat strange and slowly disappearing form.

What does it look like?

The present subjunctive looks exactly the same as both the imperative (used in direct orders, like Go home! or Be careful!) and the part of the infinitive that isn’t the word to (to sleep or to dream).  Some call this the “plain form” of the verb, since it’s the same in all three settings (”it, merge, dig).  It doesn’t get different endings for being in the past tense (like take vs. taken) or in the third person singular (I eat vs. she eats).  Since Sentence Correction on the GMAT is completely dominated by third-person verbs (he/she/it jumps, they jump), the subjunctive will stand out more often:

Indicative (”normal”):  She bakes a cake.
Subjunctive:  I suggested that she bake a cake.

It definitely stands out!  You won’t be able to tell a friend She bake a cake! without your friend wondering whether you’ve been hit in the head too many times, because the subjunctive doesn’t live on its own, outside of a few set phrases that are basically fossils, remnants of a time when the subjunctive was more common in English (and we’ll cover those too).  When you need a present subjunctive, think of how you would form the infinitive (to hit, to sizzle) and remove the to:  that’s your present subjunctive (or “plain form”).

The past subjunctive looks the same as the normal (indicative) form, except in the verb to be.

The future subjunctive as it is traditionally taught looks different from the indicative and other subjunctives in all forms; some say that because it’s so different, we should call it something else and not the future subjunctive at all.  I mention this because your understanding of how this works is deeply affected by the way you were taught (for most non-native speakers of English) or the fact that you weren’t taught it at all (for most native speakers); I didn’t learn about the subjunctive until I studied other languages!  No matter how (or whether) you were taught the subjunctive, though, these are the forms you could see on the GMAT.

I’ve made this chart for your reference; I will include all of this information in every installment of this series so that you don’t have to refer back to this article for it:

I’ve highlighted the places where the subjunctive differs from the “normal” indicative.  In the future tense, you see that I have “will/shall”; traditionally, shall is the simple first-person future form (I/we shall, but he/she/it/you/they will), though you are not likely to see it often in American English.  Shall can still be used to show certainty or obligation (You shall not pass!), and also appears in legal language.

Where will I see it?

There are some common places the subjunctive can appear in English; we will be covering all of these in this series:

  • wishes (I wish that I were able to play the flute,  May the best man win)
  • suppositions (If I were to go to the party, I wouldn’t finish painting the house)
  • demands and commands (She demanded that he leave her house immediately)
  • suggestions and proposals (I suggest that the Board of Governors consider it a bit more)
  • conditions contrary to fact (If I were master of the universe, college tuition would be free)
  • statements of necessity (It’s necessary that they be there for your safety and comfort)
  • fearing with lest (I filled her car with gas lest she run out on her cross-country trip)
  • idiomatic phrases  (As it were, be that as it may,  . . . need only . . .)

Wishes

Wishes are one of the two most common uses of the subjunctive in spoken English (suppositions the other, which we’ll cover next time), when you use to wish, you use the past subjunctive were, even though the wish is not taking place in the past:

He wishes he were on vacation.
She wishes that the sun were out.

Note that you can use that, or not use it; the wish stays the same.

A GMAT-style question:

Despite the fantastic success he experienced in his first year of business, the owner still wishes that he is doing better.

A.  that he is doing better
B.  that he should be doing
C.  that he were doing better
D.  to be doing better
E.  to do better

Which one is correct in the original question?  Which one would be correct if we had a new question which replaced “wishes” with “wants”?

Answers next time in part 2: suppositions!

Posted in GMAT, Grockit, Sentence Correction, Verbal
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2 Comments

  1. kartik on November 21st, 2009 at 2:31 am

    is ans c

    a is out as " should" should never be used in subjunctive

    b is out as subjunctive you use plural from of verb

    Reply to this comment

  2. Varun on November 26th, 2009 at 12:07 am

    My vote is for 'C', Because it is using the past subjunctive 'were', whcih is the correct form with 'Wish'

    Reply to this comment

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