uwhusky wrote:I think the key here is understanding why verb exist and its role. Sentences are built by two essential elements, a subject noun phrase and a verb that demonstrates tense. So when you see a verb being tossed into an answer and another answer does not have a verb, that should almost be like "red flag warning!" because verb is such an important element within a sentence.

On the other hand, prepositions are tossed around in lengthy sentences as adjectives/adverbs, and they're almost always there to distract you from the real important things, subject and the verb.

In this case, the comparison could be written as:

"The level in 1990" and "the level was in 1990"

The two are not one of the same, because one is a noun phrase and the other is a clause.

lunarpower wrote:i received a private message regarding this thread. the post to which i was directed, however, doesn't seem to contain any questions, and it's also not a post written by the author of the private message.
therefore, i think the best i can do here is simply to offer a few words.

if you see a SPLIT between "will" and "would", then it's most likely that we are dealing with a tense issue.
* if we are actually talking about an event that has not occurred yet -- i.e., an event that is genuinely in the future -- then we should usually use "will".
* if we are talking about an event that was still a future event at the time described in the sentence (but is no longer a future event), then we should use "would".

a couple of examples:

several experts have predicted that brazil will win the world cup in 2014. (as of this writing it is not 2014 yet, so the future tense is appropriate)

last year, several experts predicted that brazil would win this year's world cup. (this year's world cup is now over, so it's inappropriate to use the future tense. therefore, we use "would", which is a tense that we use to describe something that was once a future event, but is no longer)

in ancient times, the mayans predicted that the world will end in the year that corresponds to A.D. 2012 on the modern gregorian calendar. (2012 has not happened yet, so we still use the future tense for the prediction -- even though the prediction was made a really, really long time ago)

lunarpower wrote:

kvcpk wrote:Hi Ron,

Can you please explain the will/would usage when used in If..Then construct?

I had trouble dealing with this problem. As I understand, in a IF..Then Construct,
Would is used when "If" part describes a situation unlikely to occur.
Will is used when "if" part describes a situation likely to occur.

there is such a distinction, but i don't recall seeing any official problems using that distinction.
in every "will"/"would" problem that i can immediately remember, the distinction has always been based on the tense of the verb, as described in the post that you quoted above.

even if there are some official problems that use the "if/then likely/unlikely" distinction -- a possibility that i don't completely discount -- they are vastly outnumbered by problems that use the tense distinction.