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Usage of Simple past vs Present Perfect

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by TGIF » Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:25 am
I came across this question, while trying to understand usage of simple past vs present perfect, for the cases where action started & finished in past, but its effect continues in present.

This tree (be)_____ planted by settlers, who(found)_______ our city, over four hundred years ago.

What is your take?
A raw guess would have been Simple Past, which is the answer as well(was,founded). But I get confused, when I compare it to some examples given in MGMAT SC, e.g. The child has drawn(and not drew) a square in the sand.
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by aspirant2011 » Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:35 am
TGIF wrote:I came across this question, while trying to understand usage of simple past vs present perfect, for the cases where action started & finished in past, but its effect continues in present.

This tree (be)_____ planted by settlers, who(found)_______ our city, over four hundred years ago.

In the above sentence there is a proper timeframe mentioned I.e over four hundred years ago

What is your take?
A raw guess would have been Simple Past, which is the answer as well(was,founded). But I get confused, when I compare it to some examples given in MGMAT SC, e.g. The child has drawn(and not drew) a square in the sand.
In this sentence, timeframe is not mentioned I.e when the image was drawn, verb has/have signifies something which started in the past & continues till present.............hope I make sense
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by Jim@Grockit » Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:06 pm
If the child has drawn a square in the sand, then it is also correct grammatically to say that the child drew a square in the sand. The simple past isn't wrong in that case, but it is less descriptive.
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by TGIF » Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:25 pm
Thanks!!
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