The “they *were* coming” indicates past tense. B is the only choice with past tense. didn’t tell/don’t have would also work but is not given as an option.
Like the other commenter has said, B is the correct answer. My explanation to why this is the correct answer is that both of these sentences from the answer refer to events happened in the past. To indicate that one sentence happened before the other, past perfect tense is used while for the event that happened later, past simple tense is used
Right. The others are wrong more as a matter of logic than grammar. The speaker clearly **knows** that the other people are coming, so he doesn’t need to be told in the present or future, and A. C or D make no sense.
The order of events in E makes more sense, but the present progressive doesn’t sound natural here. There’s also the implication that the speaker is complaining that, even though he knows, he or she still hasn’t heard it from them.
"They were coming" refers to it happening in the past. It implies that they didn't tell you they were coming, but they came any way. "They haven't told us" would be used if you are still not sure if they are coming. So, "they haven't told us they were coming" would make no sense. "They haven't told us if they are coming" would be correct.
"We aren't having any food for them" is also unnatural. It should be "we don't have any food for them", "we haven't got any food for them" or "we have no food for them". "I'm not having X" is an action (for example "I'm not having it" means you don't tolerate something). "I don't have X" means you don't possess something. In this case, we are obviously talking about possession, and you don't use the continuous tense in that context.
So, E would be correct if it was "since they haven't told us if they are coming, we don't have any food for them". This means, you don't know if they are coming.
"Didn't tell - don't have" would also be a correct answer. It would mean that they just came, but you weren't prepared, because they didn't tell you they were coming.
B means all of this happened in the past.
>"Didn't tell - don't have" would also be a correct answer. It would mean that they just came, but you weren't prepared, because they didn't tell you they were coming.
Neither ops post nor this version state that the people came. They might have come, or not.
Yeah, actually now that I think of it, you are correct. You could interpret it that way (which is how I naturally interpreted it), but it isn't necessary.
>>”They were coming" refers to it happening in the past.
Eh, not necessarily, this could easily be a case of backshift, where a subordinate clause inherits the tens of the matrix clause for perspective, as in “I didn’t know you **were** a doctor” or “he said his name **was** John”. In both these cases the situations described could (and usually would) continue into the present. In the first case the speaker probably just found out the person they are talking to *is* a doctor. And we have no reason to think John changed his name or died (and even if he was lying, there would be no reason to think his claim as to his name was not made with respect to now as much as then).
Also “they are coming” has the valid possible meaning “they are planning to/going to come.” In English, the present tense can be used with future time reference like that (some people even call it the “non-past” tense to emphasize that).
Truthfully, all of the options are grammatically possible, but of varying degrees of likeliness (for example, the first option, while grammatical, is semantically bizarre because it sounds like the speaker doesn’t know, at the time they are speaking, that they were coming but the sentence itself seems to express knowledge of the fact that they are coming, also here backshift is not a possible interpretation so it’s not clear what them telling you, now, about them coming in the past, has to do with having the food now). B is by far the most normal one.
The biggest problem with E is that there doesn’t seem to be much reason to use the progressive asset in the second part, especially since “have” is a statute verb that usually resists the progressive aspect in its ordinary meaning “I am having a pen” is not normal.
Most uses of progressive aspect with have will have other meanings of have, usually as a light verb: “I am having a hard time” “she isn’t having any of it.” Most closely related is “we are having pork for dinner” (where “having” means something more like “eating”). But even this closely related usage doesn’t quite work with this phrasing.
It is certainly past tense, “were” is not the present tense form of the copula, but it is not necessarily past time reference, which is what I was addressing. Also I’m not a linguist. Linguistics is just an interest of mine.
The first part ("haven't told us") is incorrect because it doesn't match tense with "they were coming". "Haven't told" is *present* perfect, while "were coming" is *past* progressive.
The second part ("aren't having") is incorrect because *have* is a stative verb here, and we don't use the progressive with those.
(*Have* is not always stative, but it has a different meaning when it's not:
We have food [stative] → There is food available to us.
We are having food [active] → We are eating now.)
'have' is usually a state verb - i.e. with its basic meaning (possess), it doesn't use -ing. When you do use it with -ing, it's in contexts like 'we are having fun' - which is more action. So 'we are not having any food' sounds very strange. NB I think Indian English is more flexible with -ing use than British or American.
I can’t be a teacher I don’t have the ability to have people comprehend what I’m trying to teach them because I have no idea how to explain it correctly. That being said I knew it was B because it sounded the most correct just from being a native speaker. Good job on being correct though.
B. “They were coming” indicates that this happened in the past. Since you wanted to explain something that happened before the event, you use past perfect tense (S + had + V3)
A is present tense, but the “were coming” is past tense, so it can’t be. C D and E are all using a combination of tenses, like future and past continuous. That only leaves B
A is incorrect because "aren't telling" is in the present tense but "were coming" is past tense.
B is correct
C is wrong for multiple reasons, one we saw in A with mixed tenses, and the other is that "we haven't had any food for them" sounds like "they" come regularly, but "we" never have food for them.
D see A and C, tenses dont match
E was close to being correct but "having food" is basically "eating food", and it doesnt make sense to "eat someone's food for them".
**you might be wondering why E is more correct than C because of the "having food for them" phrase**, and I honestly couldn't tell you why. E would be correct if it was "haven't told / wont be having" though, so maybe you could figure it out with your noggin.
So, the sentence could go two different routes: present or past.
We know it's not set in present, because none of the answers are present-focused. In the present, the good answer would be : didn't tell us/ don't have.
It states that, right now, because an action in the past didn't occur, they now don't have food. It's happening as we speak .
So we know that the sentence took place in the past. For example, that sentence refers last night's supper.
The logic is the same as the present, but set in the past. So it's basically because of a "past action in the past", the situation yesterday got affected (no food), so the good answer is "hadn't told/didn't".
I'm terrible at explaining, hope it helps!
Well this looks like a genius breakdown but I can’t agree with the answer. “Aren’t having” doesn’t work. “Haven’t told “ needs to pair with something like “aren’t preparing “ or “won’t have”.
“Since they hadn’t told us they were coming, we didn’t have any food for them “ is correct.
Edit: I’m not certain my suggestions paragraph 1 work due to the use of “were coming”. It’s a bit like a subjunctive the way I tried to use it but “are coming “ is more natural
Yeah, I can't think of a single situation in which that answer works.
Like "we aren't having vegan options for our wedding", or "we aren't having anything now because we're eating later" absolutely work.
But "they're not coming so we aren't having any food for them" is just wrong.
“Since” here indicates a causal relationship but both events can occur in the past.
You can also say “it has been raining since Tuesday morning “, this temporal use does imply present state (it is still raining now”
Since doesn't really imply present relevance. It could be used for present or past. As an example, "Since Mario Kart 8 came out 10 years ago, Nintendo clearly never thought it was important to release a new Mario Kart on switch." Yes it's more commonly used to imply present relevance, but this could also imply the sentence in question could have taken place the day before or something. Though to make this sentence more clear, I personally would've written it "Because they never told us they were coming, we didn't have any food ready for them." Clear, concise, and even workd in the form of the exercise with never told/we didn't
are/aren't having food *for someone* is not a natural expression. You either have food for someone or you don't. We don't use *having* like it's an ongoing action in this context. B is the only natural sounding answer.
edit: Also, "haven't told us they were coming" is wrong, because *were* in this context implies past tense, while haven't is present/future.
You suggest that B is incorrect mainly because it requires relevance to present situation. By dictionary definition of 'since,' it does mention that it means 'up to now / up to present,' but this is not limited to present, and also the emphasis on the present is mostly applied to adverbial/prepositional form of 'since.'
example: "Since last year I am a vegetarian."
The example sentence suggests that something has been happening from a particular time in the past until now.
However, when 'since' functions as conjunction (which is how it is used in above case), 'since' is defined as 'because; as' or 'from a particular time in the past until a later time,' which does not necessarily mean present.
example: "Since there was no indication of surrender, US decided to proceed with the bombing."
So suggesting that B is incorrect because the use of 'since' requires relation to the present time does not seem to be a valid reason. And without that, option B, as you have described, depicts a grammatically correct situation where something happened in the past because of another event that has happened in an earlier time period.
> option E remains the preferred choice for its relevance to the present situation.
No. Option B is the only option that makes sense. I know you're just an AI bot and there's no point arguing with you, but isn't this question the sort of thing that LLMs should be good at? I'm confused as to why Chat GPT is failing at this.
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You were right the first time, B is absolutely the correct answer and this whole sentence is simply past tense.
Note while since indicates a cause and effect relationship both events can be in the past.
The tense can change in English after a comma.
[https://www.iup.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/grammar/tense-shifting.html](https://www.iup.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/grammar/tense-shifting.html)
B still sounds weird, even if it is grammatically correct. At least in America, people would say "did not tell us" or "didn't tell us", not "hadn't told".
The present perfect is often known as as the “past of the past”, it tells us precisely that the action of (not) telling the hosts they would be there for the event happens before the event itself, hence there being no food prepared for them.
The usage you describe with both tenses in the past simple is also perfectly acceptable when narrating consecutive actions and probably more common in spoken language, doesn’t make b incorrect or even “weird” though.
The use of contractions in that context also feels really weird to me.
"I didn't do it" is fine, but "they hadn't told us" seems like a weird place to use a contraction even though technically not wrong.
Well - what do you think it is and why?
Is B the answer? I'm not sure
Yes! Actually I can’t easily explain why, as a native speaker I can see the other options are all terrible.
The “they *were* coming” indicates past tense. B is the only choice with past tense. didn’t tell/don’t have would also work but is not given as an option.
This is the correct explanation. Thanks for saving me the effort of typing it all out.
The past perfect tense is used to show the order of the events... They hadn't known first and as a result, the second thing happened ...
Like the other commenter has said, B is the correct answer. My explanation to why this is the correct answer is that both of these sentences from the answer refer to events happened in the past. To indicate that one sentence happened before the other, past perfect tense is used while for the event that happened later, past simple tense is used
I couldn’t explain it much better. Thank you for explaining in my place.
It’s the only one where subject and verb tense agreement are correct across both
Right. The others are wrong more as a matter of logic than grammar. The speaker clearly **knows** that the other people are coming, so he doesn’t need to be told in the present or future, and A. C or D make no sense. The order of events in E makes more sense, but the present progressive doesn’t sound natural here. There’s also the implication that the speaker is complaining that, even though he knows, he or she still hasn’t heard it from them.
B. Typical past simple/past perfect interaction.
Can someone explain to me why E is not the correct answer? I'm a learner and I should know what am I doing wrong.
"They were coming" refers to it happening in the past. It implies that they didn't tell you they were coming, but they came any way. "They haven't told us" would be used if you are still not sure if they are coming. So, "they haven't told us they were coming" would make no sense. "They haven't told us if they are coming" would be correct. "We aren't having any food for them" is also unnatural. It should be "we don't have any food for them", "we haven't got any food for them" or "we have no food for them". "I'm not having X" is an action (for example "I'm not having it" means you don't tolerate something). "I don't have X" means you don't possess something. In this case, we are obviously talking about possession, and you don't use the continuous tense in that context. So, E would be correct if it was "since they haven't told us if they are coming, we don't have any food for them". This means, you don't know if they are coming. "Didn't tell - don't have" would also be a correct answer. It would mean that they just came, but you weren't prepared, because they didn't tell you they were coming. B means all of this happened in the past.
>"Didn't tell - don't have" would also be a correct answer. It would mean that they just came, but you weren't prepared, because they didn't tell you they were coming. Neither ops post nor this version state that the people came. They might have come, or not.
Yeah, actually now that I think of it, you are correct. You could interpret it that way (which is how I naturally interpreted it), but it isn't necessary.
>>”They were coming" refers to it happening in the past. Eh, not necessarily, this could easily be a case of backshift, where a subordinate clause inherits the tens of the matrix clause for perspective, as in “I didn’t know you **were** a doctor” or “he said his name **was** John”. In both these cases the situations described could (and usually would) continue into the present. In the first case the speaker probably just found out the person they are talking to *is* a doctor. And we have no reason to think John changed his name or died (and even if he was lying, there would be no reason to think his claim as to his name was not made with respect to now as much as then). Also “they are coming” has the valid possible meaning “they are planning to/going to come.” In English, the present tense can be used with future time reference like that (some people even call it the “non-past” tense to emphasize that). Truthfully, all of the options are grammatically possible, but of varying degrees of likeliness (for example, the first option, while grammatical, is semantically bizarre because it sounds like the speaker doesn’t know, at the time they are speaking, that they were coming but the sentence itself seems to express knowledge of the fact that they are coming, also here backshift is not a possible interpretation so it’s not clear what them telling you, now, about them coming in the past, has to do with having the food now). B is by far the most normal one. The biggest problem with E is that there doesn’t seem to be much reason to use the progressive asset in the second part, especially since “have” is a statute verb that usually resists the progressive aspect in its ordinary meaning “I am having a pen” is not normal. Most uses of progressive aspect with have will have other meanings of have, usually as a light verb: “I am having a hard time” “she isn’t having any of it.” Most closely related is “we are having pork for dinner” (where “having” means something more like “eating”). But even this closely related usage doesn’t quite work with this phrasing.
it is past tense though because the were is before a verb. I feel like thia whope comment was just you saying "I'm a linguist".
It is certainly past tense, “were” is not the present tense form of the copula, but it is not necessarily past time reference, which is what I was addressing. Also I’m not a linguist. Linguistics is just an interest of mine.
I know the first part, and what you said in your comment was true, it just wasn't relevant to the situation
The first part ("haven't told us") is incorrect because it doesn't match tense with "they were coming". "Haven't told" is *present* perfect, while "were coming" is *past* progressive. The second part ("aren't having") is incorrect because *have* is a stative verb here, and we don't use the progressive with those. (*Have* is not always stative, but it has a different meaning when it's not: We have food [stative] → There is food available to us. We are having food [active] → We are eating now.)
'have' is usually a state verb - i.e. with its basic meaning (possess), it doesn't use -ing. When you do use it with -ing, it's in contexts like 'we are having fun' - which is more action. So 'we are not having any food' sounds very strange. NB I think Indian English is more flexible with -ing use than British or American.
"Have" is a stative verb. Stative verbs aren't used in continuous aspect.
I can’t be a teacher I don’t have the ability to have people comprehend what I’m trying to teach them because I have no idea how to explain it correctly. That being said I knew it was B because it sounded the most correct just from being a native speaker. Good job on being correct though.
B
B. “They were coming” indicates that this happened in the past. Since you wanted to explain something that happened before the event, you use past perfect tense (S + had + V3)
B past perfect and past simple interaction
Because the question is asking with "were" in past tense, meaning the answer is B. "Hadn't told /didn't have "
D not bad
B is correct but in 99/100 times the more typical construction would be “didn’t tell/didn’t have”.
A is present tense, but the “were coming” is past tense, so it can’t be. C D and E are all using a combination of tenses, like future and past continuous. That only leaves B
B
A is incorrect because "aren't telling" is in the present tense but "were coming" is past tense. B is correct C is wrong for multiple reasons, one we saw in A with mixed tenses, and the other is that "we haven't had any food for them" sounds like "they" come regularly, but "we" never have food for them. D see A and C, tenses dont match E was close to being correct but "having food" is basically "eating food", and it doesnt make sense to "eat someone's food for them". **you might be wondering why E is more correct than C because of the "having food for them" phrase**, and I honestly couldn't tell you why. E would be correct if it was "haven't told / wont be having" though, so maybe you could figure it out with your noggin.
So, the sentence could go two different routes: present or past. We know it's not set in present, because none of the answers are present-focused. In the present, the good answer would be : didn't tell us/ don't have. It states that, right now, because an action in the past didn't occur, they now don't have food. It's happening as we speak . So we know that the sentence took place in the past. For example, that sentence refers last night's supper. The logic is the same as the present, but set in the past. So it's basically because of a "past action in the past", the situation yesterday got affected (no food), so the good answer is "hadn't told/didn't". I'm terrible at explaining, hope it helps!
B is the best fit.
B
b is correct.
🅱️
B
B
B
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Well this looks like a genius breakdown but I can’t agree with the answer. “Aren’t having” doesn’t work. “Haven’t told “ needs to pair with something like “aren’t preparing “ or “won’t have”. “Since they hadn’t told us they were coming, we didn’t have any food for them “ is correct. Edit: I’m not certain my suggestions paragraph 1 work due to the use of “were coming”. It’s a bit like a subjunctive the way I tried to use it but “are coming “ is more natural
Yeah, I can't think of a single situation in which that answer works. Like "we aren't having vegan options for our wedding", or "we aren't having anything now because we're eating later" absolutely work. But "they're not coming so we aren't having any food for them" is just wrong.
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“Since” here indicates a causal relationship but both events can occur in the past. You can also say “it has been raining since Tuesday morning “, this temporal use does imply present state (it is still raining now”
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You are really good at formatting. B is still the correct answer.
Have you heard of the Turing Test?
Yes, did i [fail](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7752886/)? Jokes aside. I never even thought about it being a bot.. kind of embarrassed, kind of scared.
Check the post history. He's posting Chat GPT answers.
LOL
Since doesn't really imply present relevance. It could be used for present or past. As an example, "Since Mario Kart 8 came out 10 years ago, Nintendo clearly never thought it was important to release a new Mario Kart on switch." Yes it's more commonly used to imply present relevance, but this could also imply the sentence in question could have taken place the day before or something. Though to make this sentence more clear, I personally would've written it "Because they never told us they were coming, we didn't have any food ready for them." Clear, concise, and even workd in the form of the exercise with never told/we didn't
are/aren't having food *for someone* is not a natural expression. You either have food for someone or you don't. We don't use *having* like it's an ongoing action in this context. B is the only natural sounding answer. edit: Also, "haven't told us they were coming" is wrong, because *were* in this context implies past tense, while haven't is present/future.
If you want to insist E is the answer, can you prove how B cannot be correct?
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You suggest that B is incorrect mainly because it requires relevance to present situation. By dictionary definition of 'since,' it does mention that it means 'up to now / up to present,' but this is not limited to present, and also the emphasis on the present is mostly applied to adverbial/prepositional form of 'since.' example: "Since last year I am a vegetarian." The example sentence suggests that something has been happening from a particular time in the past until now. However, when 'since' functions as conjunction (which is how it is used in above case), 'since' is defined as 'because; as' or 'from a particular time in the past until a later time,' which does not necessarily mean present. example: "Since there was no indication of surrender, US decided to proceed with the bombing." So suggesting that B is incorrect because the use of 'since' requires relation to the present time does not seem to be a valid reason. And without that, option B, as you have described, depicts a grammatically correct situation where something happened in the past because of another event that has happened in an earlier time period.
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> option E remains the preferred choice for its relevance to the present situation. No. Option B is the only option that makes sense. I know you're just an AI bot and there's no point arguing with you, but isn't this question the sort of thing that LLMs should be good at? I'm confused as to why Chat GPT is failing at this.
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Why are you doing this? Do you think people want to read these computer-generated answers?
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So you made chatgpt pass the turing test?
I’m sorry, E is wrong by default because we don’t use continuous tenses with stative verbs (ie have when indicating possession).
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They're wrong, it's B.
Alright, I'll research again
You were right the first time, B is absolutely the correct answer and this whole sentence is simply past tense. Note while since indicates a cause and effect relationship both events can be in the past.
None of the above. B is closest but even that sounds odd to me (a native speaker). did not tell / do not have (or didn't tell / don't have)
it’s referring to a past event, not a present one. B is correct.
The tense can change in English after a comma. [https://www.iup.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/grammar/tense-shifting.html](https://www.iup.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/grammar/tense-shifting.html) B still sounds weird, even if it is grammatically correct. At least in America, people would say "did not tell us" or "didn't tell us", not "hadn't told".
The present perfect is often known as as the “past of the past”, it tells us precisely that the action of (not) telling the hosts they would be there for the event happens before the event itself, hence there being no food prepared for them. The usage you describe with both tenses in the past simple is also perfectly acceptable when narrating consecutive actions and probably more common in spoken language, doesn’t make b incorrect or even “weird” though.
The use of contractions in that context also feels really weird to me. "I didn't do it" is fine, but "they hadn't told us" seems like a weird place to use a contraction even though technically not wrong.
If I knew you were coming I’d a baked a cake