Past and Present Perfect Tense: wood ant
The Grammar Bit!
Read the four scintillating sentences opposite. The first two sentences are in the simple past tense. This means that the actions or events started in the past and finished in the past.
When sentences are in the simple past tense the verb (bold) often ends in ‘ed’.
With your talk partner, can you think of a different simple past tense sentence featuring ants?
The third and fourth sentences are in the present perfect form of the past tense. This means that the actions or events started sometime in the past but are either still happening now or are in some way connected to the present. Notice how the words ‘has’ and ‘have’ (underlined) are used to help give this meaning to each sentence.
With your talk partner, can you think of a different present perfect sentence featuring ants?
Scintillating Sentences
Simple past tense
1) Last night, the angry wood ants sprayed the cows with formic acid.
2) All day, the cows avoided the strange-looking mounds.
Present perfect form
3) The ant colony has worked like a single organism to protect its precious nest.
4) The cows have fallen victim to the cunning wood ants.
Did you know?
Wood ants can lift things that are 100 times their own body weight. The human equivalent would be for us to carry a bus!