Recognizing Tense-Switching
Below are the first three paragraphs of a well-known novel in English, A Little Princess. Print this page and read these paragraphs. After you have finished reading, underline all the verbs that you think are in the wrong tense. Also, answer the question below. When you have finished, click here to check your answers.
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 lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl will sit in a cab with her father and is driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares.
She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leans against her father, who is holding 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 only seven.
Question:
Which tense do you think the author originally chose for these paragraphs? Why?