Mixed English Grammar Quiz | Improve your vocabulary

[@learnenglish-l5h]

Excellent test. 🖐👍

[@mikekurtz5868]

Question: "seen the movie before" The OED identifies answer A, not B, as correct. Explaining: "Has seen indicates an action that has been completed at some time up to the present moment. [OED example] : 'She has seen that movie before.' 'Had seen' indicates an action that was completed before another past event. [OED example]: 'He had seen the warning signs before the accident.' " Question: "Neither the students nor the teacher..." If describing a present situation (a not at all unreasonable assumption) then answer C would also be grammatically correct. I find nothing in the context that would preclude a present tense interpretation.

[@EnglishSpeechSlingers]

"Had seen" is used because the sentence is talking about something that happened before another past event (he said it). This is called the past perfect tense. "Has seen" is not correct because it is used to talk about something that happened recently or up to now, not something that happened before a past moment. "Seen" alone is not correct because it needs a helper verb like "had" or "has" to make sense. So, we use "had seen" because the movie was watched before he spoke about it. Example: First, he watched the movie. Later, he said he had seen it.

[@mikekurtz5868]

​@@EnglishSpeechSlingersThank you for your thoughtful and timely reply. I dug a bit deeper into the OED guidance on this, and your answer "had seen" is indeed absolutely correct. Thank you for your efforts in clarifying this.