STRUCTURE SKILL 5
In Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL TEST
As you can see in the picture of this post, we'll learn about 'past participle'. What is past participle? From its form (bentuknya), this word looks like a verb, a verb in its third form (kata kerja bentuk ketiga). For example, 'delivered', 'mailed', 'shown', 'eaten', etc.
In this chance, we'll learn past participle which is used not as a verb but as an adjective. As you know, an adjective gives more meaning or information for nouns. As we go further this expression will be called as 'reduced adjective clause'. You'll find a lesson similar to this one in this book. It's just a different term the book uses. I hope you won't get confused.
As usual, we are going to learn about the skill from the example question that is provided in the book. I will put it in this blog too for our convenient.
The question:
1. The packages ____ mailed at the post office will arrive Monday.
A. have
B. were
C. them
D. just
What do you think of the answer? Personally, I don't think this kind of question can be answered by only using our intuitions or feeling. If you get it right by doing it that way, it means there is possibility of you getting errors in this question. Because I have experienced it too. In this case, when you try to understand an expression in bahasa Indonesia, sometimes it will feel right, but actually the sentence construction is still wrong. So, it's better for us to learn how to understand this structure and possibly use it in our daily life.
First of all, I need to analyze the (incomplete) expression or sentence. Then, I will try to analyze the sentence with the knowledge I have. It will be easier for me to select the impossible options first, the wrong ones. Let's try to have the option A first.
A. The packages have mailed at the post office will arrive Monday.
In terms of meaning, some might say, "the meaning is okay." But, the sentence structure is NOT. As you can see here, we originally have two verbs: have mailed and will arrive. So, we can't possibly have these two verbs (or two events) without any connectors. That makes A options wrong.
How about the B option?
B. The packages were mailed at the post office will arrive Monday.
The sentence now tells us two kinds of events again, which are 'were mailed' and 'will arrive', but no connector is seen. So, option B is wrong too.
Let's move on to option C.
C. The packages them mailed at the post office will arrive Monday.
With a short look, we can say that even the meaning does not seem right. We can try to adjust the sentence and make it like this: The packages they mailed at the post office will arrive Monday. But, this expression are only often used in spoken context or non-formal written text. They will not use it during a formal test.
Our last option is D. Since we know the reason why option A, B, and C are wrong. It means the right answer goes to option D. Do you know the reason why?
D. The packages just mailed at the post office will arrive Monday.
I will just tell you the reason why D is right. It will be a bit long before we get this sentence. Actually the sentence looks like this:
The original version: The packages which were (just) mailed at the post office will arrive Monday. (Paket yang (baru) dikirimkan di kantor pos akan tiba pada hari Senin.)
The short version: The packages (just) mailed at the post office will arrive Monday. (Paket yang (baru) dikirimkan di kantor pos akan tiba pada hari Senin.)
or we have got another possibility here:
The original version: The packages which have (just) been mailed at the post office will arrive Monday. (Paket yang (baru) dikirim ke kantor pos akan tiba pada hari Senin.)
The short version: The packages (just) mailed at the post office will arrive Monday (Paket yang (baru) dikirim ke kantor pos akan tiba pada hari Senin).
The meaning is the same, isn't it? Just a matter of time and tenses when using either 'were' and 'have'. The construction of the sentence is varied, right?.
As you can see from the construction above, important clues that you need to pay attention are:
1. How many clauses (events or verbs) do you have?
2. If you have two clauses, you need a connector (in any kind of form). And, if you have more than two clauses, it means you need more than one connector as well.
3. If there is no connector in the option, it is possible that the sentence is in reduced form! (Try to find the connector first)
4. What are connectors? They can be coordinate connectors, adverb connectors, adjective clause, and noun clause (as long as I remember at this moment). You can check my previous blog about this lesson. 😊
This lesson goes together with skill 4 about present participle. They are the same form of reduced adjective clauses. Contrary to present participles, past participle (verb, mostly ends with -ed) is an adjective to explain the noun, with passive meaning.
What do you think of this particular lesson? Personally, I feel this is the difficult lesson I need to explain during TOEFL class. And this kind of question usually appear in the last numbers of structure part. If you can master this lesson, there a high possibility that you can master the test too. 😀
Note:
(): The bracket is optional. You can add them to give more meaning in the sentence.
You can also watch this lesson in our YouTube. We have more videos related about self-learning English. Feel free to visit the link:
(1) TOEFL Structure Skill 5 - Be careful of past participles*
Correction: Pardon my mistake for typing down the wrong term. In this video, we're learning about past participle, but I haven't edited the PPT yet and still use the term from the previous lesson 'Present Participle.'
I have provided the Presentation slides. You can download the presentation freely by visiting this link: (I will update the link soon. Thanks for waiting.)
Komentar
Posting Komentar