BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

Irregular Past Perfect Verbs ( Rules)

Expert replies
by Julia201 » Fri Jun 04, 2010 12:33 pm
Did I apply the rules for Irregular Past Perfect Verbs correctly. Please Help?

Example: Go


Present: I GO to school in NY

Present Perfect: I will be GOING to school in NY

Past: I WENT to school in NY

Perfect Past: If I HAD GONE to school in NY, then I WOULD HAVE WENT to class early everyday
< Totally lost when it comes to using gone vs went. It would be so helpful if anyone can explain how to apply this tense/rule correctly>

Future: I WILL GO to school in NY once I get accepeted to NYU

Future Past: I WILL HAVE to do my homework by tomorrow
Join the discussion
Source: — Sentence Correction |

by uwhusky » Fri Jun 04, 2010 1:23 pm
There are several errors in your application of the rules, I recommend reviewing chapter 7 of MGMAT SC guide.
Join the discussion

by Stacey Koprince » Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:18 pm
Received a PM asking me to respond.
Present: I GO to school in NY
Yes, that's right.
Present Perfect: I will be GOING to school in NY
This is actually future continuous or progressive (not tested on the exam usually). :) Present perfect is constructed with "have / has" and the past participle. For regular verbs, the past participle is typically an -ed word. "to go" has the irregular past participle "gone."

Present Perfect: I have gone to school in NY
Past: I WENT to school in NY
Yes.
Perfect Past: If I HAD GONE to school in NY, then I WOULD HAVE WENT to class early everyday
Not quite. "gone" is the past participle. "went" is how we conjugate the verb in past tense. past perfect is constructed using "had" plus the past participle: had gone.

these are all simple past tense: I went, you went, he went, we went, they went

these are all past perfect: I had gone, you had gone, he had gone, we had gone, they had gone

By the time you arrived, we had already gone to bed.

The sentence you offer above has the additional complexity of being an "if/then" statement that does NOT reflect reality - that is, it's a hypothetical. In that case, you'd say:
If I had gone to school in NY, then I would have gone to class early every day.

The "would have gone" expresses a conditional (and hypothetical) statement - this only would have happened IF something else had happened first. This is also not that common to see on the GMAT.
Future: I WILL GO to school in NY once I get accepeted to NYU
yes.
Future Past: I WILL HAVE to do my homework by tomorrow
Do you mean Future Perfect? This one is missing the verb "go." Future perfect might say something like:
I will have gone to bed by the time you arrive tonight.
This reflects a situation in which you are "projecting" yourself into the future (specifically, the time that you arrive tonight) and you discuss an action that will be in the past at that time: specifically, when I knock on your door at 10p tonight, you will have gone to bed sometime before that time.

Future tenses don't get tested a ton on this test, though they can be tested. Present perfect and past perfect are probably the most frequently tested.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Learn more about me
Join the discussion

• Page 1 of 1