HAD been vs. HAS been

[nycgirl212]

Sometimes when doing certain SC questions in the OG, I am not sure which answer choice to pick if one contains HAS BEEN and one contains HAD BEEN.

Specifically, #48 in the Verbal review book. I know I am not allowed to post the question, but would it be possible for someone to explain exactly why the answer containing "HAD BEEN" is the correct choice instead of the answer containing "HAS BEEN?"

Furthermore, the correct answer has the modifier "RECENT" instead of "RECENTLY." That is confusing to me as well. Could someone please elaborate on that?

Thank you

[tim]

"has been" is used when something is still ongoing, while "had been" refers to something that happened prior to something else in the past - in this case, the thing that the retailer said. the "said" was in the past tense, so the problems need to be in the past perfect..

the difference between "recent" and "recently" just depends on what it is modifying - "recent" modifies a noun and "recently" modifies something other than a noun (usually a verb or adjective). either "recent" or "recently" could be used, depending on the context..

[b.shmorhun]

I have also been wondering about the difference.

For example:

She has played soccer
She had played soccer
She had been playing soccer
She was playing soccer

Although I get them intuitively, could you give an explanation of the difference?

Many thanks.

[RonPurewal]

I have also been wondering about the difference.

For example:

She has played soccer
She had played soccer
She had been playing soccer
She was playing soccer

Although I get them intuitively, could you give an explanation of the difference?

Many thanks.

Perhaps I'm not sure what you mean by "getting them intuitively". (If you understand each tense intuitively, then just think about the differences among those understandings!)

In any case, two things:

1/
Verb tense is entirely a function of context. If a subject and a verb are presented with no context whatsoever, then there's no meaning.
(This is true of just about anything in a sentence, but it's even more true of verb tense because verb tense has nothing to do with grammar/mechanics.)

2/
Without a context, this boils down to just asking about how all four of these tenses work in general.
A complete description of four different verb tenses would be much too long for this forum. Conveniently, though, you can just google the different English verb tenses and find a million zillion internet sites that do a fine job of explaining how they work.

If you have a question about how these tenses work in a specific context, then please post that question here. For answers to extremely general questions, you'll get better results (without watiing!) by using google.

[RonPurewal]

Although I get them intuitively, could you give an explanation of the difference?

Many thanks.

Also"”
If the intuition you described here is good enough to (a) tell which tense to use in an actual context AND (b) solve gmat problems, then that's good enough. In fact, that's ideal. If your intuition already resolves a particular issue reliably, then you shouldn't consciously study that issue.

If you don't understand why not, just think about forming sentences in your own native language, whether you're speaking or writing.
Think about any random sentence that you might write or say. In that sentence, think about the HUGE number of constructions that exist, and that interact with each other. In any sentence. Every sentence.
If you had to think about all of those things consciously, it would take you several minutes to form any sentence that you might want to speak or write. A paragraph might take as long as an hour.

The reason why it doesn't actually take that long is intuition, which does the lion's share of the work when you speak/write in your own native language. If your intuition is sufficiently developed, it will be better, faster, and much, much more nuanced than conscious thinking.

If you're not quite there yet, then you should of course study these things. If you are there, then don't.