As You May Remember, Tense Refers To ‘Present’ And ‘Past’ While Aspect Refers To ‘Progressive’ And ‘Perfect’

Unit 1: My Secondary School Life

GRAMMAR EXERCISE

ANSWER KEY

(i) Simple Present Tense vs. Present Progressive 1. I am waiting outside the library at the moment. 2. John is sleeping but I am watching TV in the living room now.

Explanation: Present progressive is used to describe an action that is happening at the moment of speaking (e.g. ‘now’, ‘at the moment’).

3. I study in the library every day. 4. Peter wants to get a toy car in his birthday. 5. Water freezes at 0C

Explanation: Simple present is used to refer to: (i) a repeated event in the present time frame in (3), (ii) a ‘state’ (or ‘non-action’) verb (e.g. want) in (4), or (iii) timeless facts in (5).

(ii) Simple Past Tense vs. Past Progressive 6. Albert was taking a bath when May phoned him last night. 7. While I was playing TV games, my mother asked me to go shopping. 8. My mom was cleaning the kitchen while I was cleaning the bathroom.

Explanation: Past progressive is used to describe: (i) an action that was in progress at a particular moment in the past but it was interrupted by another past action in (6) and (7) [Note: ‘While’ is normally used to refer to the progressive aspect and ‘when’ is used to refer to the past action.], or (ii) two past actions that were in progress at the same time in (8).

(iii) Simple Past vs. Present Perfect 9. I have lived in North Point since 1999. 10. Oscar has recently finished the first phase of the project. He plans to start the second phase next week. 11. Lisa has visited Japan three times.

Explanation: Present perfect is used to describe an action: (i) that happened in the past but continues at the moment of speaking by markers such as ‘since’ in (9) or ‘recently’ in (10) [Note: other markers include, for example, ‘yet’, ‘already’], or (ii) that happened in the past without specifying the time in (11).

12. Ken won the football tournament in 2001. 13. We went to Wanchai to see the fireworks on the second day of the Chinese New Year.

Explanation: Simple past is used to describe an action that happened in a specific time in the past or the time is specified, e.g. ‘2001’ in (12) and ‘the second day of the Chinese New Year’ in (13).

EPC(03-04B) (Unit 1) (Key) 1