UNIT 3: Present perfect and present perfect progressive
The world’s population has doubled since 1960. We use the present perfect to describe:
Prices have risen, so people are spending less
money.
The price of oil has been falling slowly over the
past few years.
People have been using more oil in the past
20 years.
UNIT 4: Modals of deduction and speculation
She must be very rich because she lives in a
huge apartment in Manhattan.
That might not be his real name.
She may or may not know that she’s broken the
law.
That might have been Denise who waved at us.
She could have given you a fake name.
She couldn’t have written this note because this
isn’t her handwriting.
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•• a completed action that has an effect on the
present
•• a past action that continues up to the present
•• a past action where the specific time is not
stated, and we want to emphasize the action
We use the present perfect progressive to
describe:
•• an activity that started in the past and may or
may not be in progress in the present
•• a recent activity when we want to emphasize
the process or duration of the activity
•• We don’t use the present perfect progressive
with stative verbs (know, belong, seem,
believe, etc.).
•• We use must/mustn’t, might/might not, may/
may not, could/couldn’t, and can’t (but not
can) with the base form of the verb to guess
what might be true or correct now.
•• We use must, might, may, could, and
couldn’t with have + the past participle to
guess what might be true or correct in the
past.
11/11/16 11:25 AM