Present perfect tense - 'has gone to' + duration?

A friend copied the following question out of an exam:

Peter ________ America for six months. Do you know when he’ll be back in Taiwan?
a) went to b) has been to c) has gone to d) has been in

She knows that (d) is correct, but she wants to know why © is incorrect. I can’t think of any particular rule, so I just said that it’s an exception. Is there a better explanation?

There was another one, but I think she must have copied it incorrectly, because none of the answers make sense to me:

A: What are you looking at?
B: Don’t you notice Mary ____ a skirt today?
a) putting on b) put on c) to wear d) wear
Correct answer: (d)

c is not incorrect. “Peter has gone to America for six months. Do you know when he’ll be back?” Nothing wrong with that at all.

The only incorrect option is b.

The second question is gobbledegook.

Tell your friend to tell her teacher that if he thinks this is standard English, then he’s even dumber than the rock he crawled out from under.

[quote=“Nibble”]A friend copied the following question out of an exam:

Peter ________ America for six months. Do you know when he’ll be back in Taiwan?
a) went to b) has been to c) has gone to d) has been in

She knows that (d) is correct, but she wants to know why © is incorrect. I can’t think of any particular rule, so I just said that it’s an exception. Is there a better explanation?[/quote]

My gut reaction is that all of them are OK, with b) being the least idiomatic and d) being the most idiomatic.

[quote]There was another one, but I think she must have copied it incorrectly, because none of the answers make sense to me:

A: What are you looking at?
B: Don’t you notice Mary ____ a skirt today?
a) putting on b) put on c) to wear d) wear
Correct answer: (d)[/quote]

d) is most certainly wrong. None of the answers are idiomatic, and only b) comes close to being grammatical in my opinion, with “put” being the past tense. However, “Don’t you notice” is very strange here.

“Haven’t you noticed Mary’s wearing a skirt today?” would be much better.

[quote=“Chris”][quote=“Nibble”]A friend copied the following question out of an exam:

Peter ________ America for six months. Do you know when he’ll be back in Taiwan?
a) went to b) has been to c) has gone to d) has been in

She knows that (d) is correct, but she wants to know why © is incorrect. I can’t think of any particular rule, so I just said that it’s an exception. Is there a better explanation?[/quote]

My gut reaction is that all of them are OK, with b) being the least idiomatic and d) being the most idiomatic.[/quote]“Peter has been to America for six months” is correct to me, but implies he has already come back. Apart from that, all 4 seem fine to me.
Don’t (a) and © imply it was for a definite time, so you would know when he’s coming back? It still seems like a fair question to ask when exactly he’s coming back.

I think (a) is incorrect because the question requires an answer using present perfect tense.

I think you’re right about both © and (d) being correct, though. It just gives a slightly different meaning to the statement: if you use ©, then Peter may have only left a few days ago, but (d) implies that he left six months ago.

double post

[quote=“Nibble”]I think (a) is incorrect because the question requires an answer using present perfect tense.
[/quote]
I dinna ken whit ye mean. The same answer works for all the correct examples – “at the end of the six-month period, you daft numbskull.” What I see is just another crappily constructed question from another crappily written Englishee book.
Here’s a hint: If you (not you personally) want to write an English textbook, its a good idea to, you know, like, learn a bit of the Englishee speak.

I mean I think there were instructions stating that the answer had to be present perfect. “went” is simple past tense.

I see. In that case eliminating the “wrong” answers is clear.

Not necessarily: “Peter has been to America for six months so far” implies he’s still there, in my view at least. But it also implies that the speaker is outside of America. Replace “to” with “in” and the speaker may be inside or outside the US (= America; yes, you know it’s true!).

It’s just British vs. American English.
In the US, we’d be more likely to say “John went to the US for six months.” That could mean that he’s not here right now, so can I take a message? It could also mean that he went on a trip two years ago and stayed for six months, and is now back boring everyone with innumerable slides of his travels.

The second question is just a typical Taiwanese item where someone was focusing on the tense and grammar and didn’t know usage well enough to know that “Don’t you notice” is simple present indicating habitual action or prompting someone to look for a specific item – but not in response to a question as is presented in the item. If a student could not find Waldo in a picture, for example, you could say, “Don’t you notice someone behind the tree?” (Okay, this is a little far-fetched but grammatically and usage-wise, it fits, at least for the US.)

It’s just a never-ending problem. If you have native speakers making up these tests, the tests reflect actual usage, which usualy, but not always, conforms to the rules of grammar – for the particular country or region of the writer’s English. That isn’t comfortable for the Taiwanese, as many teachers have not spent considerable time in an English-speaking country (and if they did, they often did so in the company of dozens of other Taiwanese, speaking Chinese most of the time) and can only go by “the rules”.

Really? Sounds very strange to me. Doesn’t “has been to” always imply that the whole trip (going and returning) is in the past?

“has gone to” or “went to” both sound fine to me, though.

Aha! That’s what happens when you jump the gun before being fully armed with the facts. Forget all I wrote. Apart from the part about your friend’s dumber-than-a-rock teacher – its always good to make sure the lower people are kept aware of their standing in the greater scheme of things.

My hunch: the present perfect in this form is a way to express a duration of time where you’re connecting the past (when you began the action) with the present. “to be in [some place]” is just a state of being which makes sense to happen over a duration of time. He was there six months ago and he is still there now. The duration of his being in America has been six months.

On the other hand, “to go to [some place]” is a process and using the present perfect indicates either the duration of this process (e.g. “I’ve been talking on the phone for 2 hours”) or the duration of frequency of this process (e.g. “I’ve dressed myself ever since I was 14.”)

Did he go to America six months ago? Yes. Is he going there now? No. He’s already there. In other words, “He has gone to America for six months” seems to have the meaning that he has been in the process of going to America for six months (that’s a hell of a slow boat) or it is a process he has been frequently engaging in for the past six months (a proper example of this might be “I have gone to Spring Scream since 1997.”)

[quote=“Nibble”]A friend copied the following question out of an exam:

Peter ________ America for six months. Do you know when he’ll be back in Taiwan?
a) went to b) has been to c) has gone to d) has been in[/quote]

a) is grammatically correct. However, it is not the best answer because “went to America for six months” shows that the speaker knows what the duration for the trip will be, so would not need to ask the following question. If the following question were worded to ask for the specific date it would be just as good as d)

b) is not standard English grammar, but I’ve heard native speakers say similar things. Generally “has been to” denotes an experiential aspect and is not compatible with a duration.

c) is grammatically correct. However, it is not the best answer because “has gone to” requires that the action has been completed. Without a duration, the action “go” could be completed and the person remain in America. But since the duration “for six months” is included, the entire 6 month trip is included in the scope of the perfect aspect, and the traveller must have left already. While this is still grammatical, it does not make sense relative to the following question (without additional context).

d) is the best answer. It is grammatical and matches the follow up question without the need for any additional context.

[quote]A: What are you looking at?
B: Don’t you notice Mary ____ a skirt today?
a) putting on b) put on c) to wear d) wear
Correct answer: (d)[/quote]
The only answer I can see that has any chance of being right is a). You have to assume that Person B is a peeping tom and he’s pointing out what he is looking at right now to another person, also probably a peeping tom. This may even be a habitual act for them. Even then it’s a real stretch.

Answer d) is definitely wrong. Either the student copied it wrong, the teacher made a typo, or the teacher made a glaring error.

explanation: the question is stupid.

why would you notice mary putting on her skirt.

[quote=“R. Daneel Olivaw”][quote]A: What are you looking at?
B: Don’t you notice Mary ____ a skirt today?
a) putting on b) put on c) to wear d) wear
Correct answer: (d)[/quote]
The only answer I can see that has any chance of being right is a). You have to assume that Person B is a peeping tom and he’s pointing out what he is looking at right now to another person, also probably a peeping tom. This may even be a habitual act for them. Even then it’s a real stretch.

Answer d) is definitely wrong. Either the student copied it wrong, the teacher made a typo, or the teacher made a glaring error.[/quote]

Answer (b) is grammatically correct, although the usage of “Don’t you notice” is a bit awkward. (a) isn’t grammatical with the temporal adjective “today” – either she’s a very slow dresser or it’s just wrong. If it were “now”, maybe – like it’s time to run away, the vice squad is breaking down the door, and we know that because Mary is putting on her skirt now, which she always does before that happens.
Of course “is wearing” would be what we say in the US, coupled with “Haven’t you noticed” instead of “Don’t you notice.”

I think © can be used if the person is still in America, as in this example:

“Where’s Peter?”
“He’s gone to America for six months. He’ll be back in July.”

So are there any pics of Mary putting on her skirt? That’s the only thing of any real importance in this entire thread. What colour are her panties?

sandman needs to ‘contextualize’. He is a ‘visual learner’ (not the same as a dumbass, according to Howard Gardner).

Lucky he isn’t tactile. THAT might get him in trouble with Gerd, Mary’s enormous bodybuilder boyfriend.