Should I use the past simple or the present perfect tense in this task?

Question

Hello everyone

I have a question about a task that we had in school. It was about a short text where we had to fill some gaps. The infinitive form of the verb was always given, so we just had to use the correct tense and either active or passive. My question is if you would use the past simple ("happened", "was stolen") or the present perfect tense ("has happened", "has been stolen") for the first two gaps. There are solutions for the exercise online however I ask you not to look at it because I want the opinion of an expert, not a solution-copy! Maybe also both answers are possible, feel free with your response!

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The task:

Dear Julia,

You’ll never guess what (1) ( happen ) (answer: ????). Our lovely new car (2) ( steal ) (answer: ????)!

One day last week Jack went out to the beach for a swim and as usual he (3) ( hide ) (answer: “hid”) the car keys in the toe of his shoe. When he came out of the water, he (4) ( not notice ) (answer: “didn’t notice”) anything suspicious. It didn’t look as if his clothes (5) ( touch ) (answer: “had been touched”). When he started to put them on, however, he realised that the keys (6) ( take ) (answer: “had been taken”) and when he got to the car park, of course, the car was gone too. The police say there is a gang of car thieves who (7) ( know ) (answer: “are known”) to be operating in the area. They think Jack (8) ( watch ) (answer: “was being watched”) as he arrived at the beach. The thieves saw where he had parked the car and then where the keys (9) ( hide ) (answer: “were hidden”). It was almost two weeks ago now and although we hope it (10) ( find ) (answer: “will be found”), we’re beginning to think we might never see it again.

Well, that’s all from me. Write soon and tell me all your news.

Love, Raquel

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In my opinion, you should use the past simple tense for the first two gaps, because the present simple tense is usually used for past happenings that continue into the present. The car was obviously stolen in the past and this happening was also finished in the past. In my opinion, the first sentence ("You'll never guess what happened!") refers to the second sentence (that the car was stolen), so it should also be past simple. Do you agree or are there any misconceptions about that?

Thank you in advance for your time and for a serious answer

Johannes Zeller

Answer 1

Hi Johannes!

Yes! I think the way that you’re evaluating this scenario is correct. To break this down a bit further, we could think of it like this:

We can understand that the event that took place only occurred once (the car “was stolen”). It has not been continually or continuously occurring (the car has not “been being stolen” repeatedly). The opening sentence refers to this singular past event (what “happened”) versus an ongoing situation, such as the car being stolen numerous times (what “has been happening”).

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

The first two sentences are in the Past Simple Tense:

1. You'll never guess what happened.
2. Our lovely new car was stole.

The Present Tense of the irregular verb is steal.

The Past Tense is stole.

The Past Participle is stolen.

Regular verbs, simply add "ed" in the Past Tense and Past Participle.

I walk to the park. We walked to the park. Tom walked to work this morning.

Maria talks on the phone. She talked on the phone last night. They talked yesterday.

Past Participle: has / have walked, had walked.

Whereas Irregular verbs change in the Past tense and in the Past Participle.

We need to look them up or memorize them; to name a few:

am/be, was/were, been; Past Participle (has/hav been, had been)

begin, began, begun; bite, bit, bitten; come, came, come; do, did, done;

drink, drank, drunk; drive, drove, driven; eat, ate, eaten; fly, flew, flown;

freeze, froze, frozen; go, went, gone; hide, hid, hidden; know, knew, known;

lay, laid, laid; run, ran, run; see, saw, seen; sing, sang/sung, sung; sit, sat, sat;

speak, spoke ,spoken; swim, swam, swum; write, wrote, written.

It helps to remember them in alphabetical order (actually, I sing them out loud. giggle!)

Hint: students, watch out for the irregular verbs in assignments and tests.