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Standard English Conventions Videos 41 videos

SAT Writing and Language Drill 7.1 Sentence Structure
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SAT Writing and Language Drill 2.6 Sentence Structure 5 Views


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Description:

Took? Had taken? Would have taken? Would take? Some make options, so little time. Watch this SAT Writing video to find out which one is best to use in this presidential passage.


Transcript

00:02

All right shmoop er's Next question Six of eleven in

00:04

the george washington saga So we're ah the word took

00:09

which is way down here in this paragraph right here

00:12

You want some kind of writing something metabolic me because

00:14

it's like that for several rejections happen because nobody's going

00:16

to get anywhere Washington took his oath in view of

00:18

thousands Okay so took what do you think about took

00:24

Seems like a weird phrase and it's a weird word

00:27

so washington doesn't take his oath until later in the

00:31

essay right We've got a timing thing took is in

00:34

the past tense so that not sound strange that there's

00:37

no time machine in seventeen ninety whatever this is yeah

00:40

So even though the story is in the past tense

00:42

taking the o still hasn't happened yet So the best

00:45

choice here is the conditional would or would take which

00:49

we can use here to refer to a future event

00:52

from the perspective of the past like it hasn't happened

00:55

yet There's not one in a million ons he never

00:57

takes the oath so he would take it if he

01:00

could take it right We'll using the past tense like

01:03

took in this paragraph jumps the action too far ahead

01:05

in the story Yes no time travel the construction would

01:08

have taken suggest something that could have happened in the

01:11

past but didn't and that doesn't work here because we

01:14

know that the oath taking did indeed happen All right

01:16

The next choice to be had taken all right and

01:19

that suggests that the oath taking happened before we began

01:22

telling the story which is impossible without you know presidential

01:25

teleportation So no time machines back then And sadly no

01:29

time machines today because we'd love to see how dinosaurs

01:31

were different issue Okay moving on that's it it z

01:36

there would take by

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