Recognizing Tense-Switching – Answer Key
The incorrect verb forms are in green and the correct form is in brackets [].
Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps are [were] lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl will sit [sat] in a cab with her father and is [was] driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares.
She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leans [leaned] against her father, who is holding [held] her in his arm, as she stared out of the window at the passing people with a queer old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes.
She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sara Crewe is [was] only seven.
Question:
Which tense do you think the author originally chose for these paragraphs? Why?
The author used the past tense for these paragraphs, because she wanted the readers to know that this was a scene that took place in the past. Notice the phrase, “Once on a dark winter’s day” that starts the story. This is a clue in English that the action is in the past, like the phrase, “Once upon a time.”
For the text of the whole story, visit http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BurLiPr.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1