A particular kind of Part 5 verb item frustrates candidates who think they have already mastered tenses. They know the present perfect, they know the past simple, and yet they still miss these questions — because the item is not testing whether they can form a tense. It is testing whether the tense in the blank agrees with another verb already in the sentence. The answer is not chosen freely; it is constrained by a timeline that the rest of the sentence has already set.
This is the territory of sequence of tenses and tense consistency. When TOEIC Link gives you a sentence with two verbs and blanks out one of them, the visible verb is the clue, not the noise. This guide shows you how to read the fixed verb, infer the timeline, and let that timeline force the answer.
Why these items resist "just pick the natural tense"
With a normal tense item, you read the time markers — yesterday, since 2019, by next week — and choose the tense they signal. Sequence-of-tenses items remove that comfort. Often there is no adverb of time at all; the only signal is the relationship between two verbs.
Consider:
The supervisor confirmed that the order __ shipped.
There is no yesterday or already here. The signal is confirmed, a past-tense verb. In reported statements, the verb in the subordinate clause shifts back to stay consistent with the past-tense reporting verb, so the answer is had been (or, in looser business usage, was), not has been or is. The blank is not free — it is anchored to confirmed.
This is the whole skill: find the anchor verb, read what timeline it sets, and choose the tense that keeps the sentence consistent with that timeline. Our broader treatment of how individual tenses are formed and signalled lives in the verb tenses guide; this article focuses specifically on the cases where one verb dictates another.
The three patterns TOEIC Link tests most
Pattern 1: Reported speech and that-clauses after a past reporting verb
When the main verb is in the past (said, announced, confirmed, reported, explained, noted), the verb in the following that-clause typically shifts one step into the past to match.
- Present → past: "The system is down" becomes He said the system was down.
- Past → past perfect: "The shipment arrived" becomes She reported that the shipment had arrived.
- Will → would: "We will refund you" becomes They confirmed that they would refund the customer.
The trap option is almost always the un-shifted present or future (is, will), which looks natural to a candidate reading the clause in isolation. The fix: glance left to the reporting verb. If it is past, the clause verb shifts back.
A practical exception worth knowing: when the reported statement is a general truth or still-current fact, English often leaves the present tense in place — The analyst noted that the market is volatile. TOEIC Link usually signals which reading it wants through context, but if both a shifted and an unshifted form appear as options, prefer the shifted form unless the clause states a timeless fact.
Pattern 2: Time clauses with future main verbs
In clauses introduced by when, after, before, as soon as, once, until, English does not use will to express future time. The future is carried by the main clause, and the time clause uses the present (or present perfect).
- We will ship the goods as soon as payment clears. (not will clear)
- Once the contract has been signed, we will begin onboarding. (not will have been)
This is one of the most reliably tested patterns in the entire section because the "wrong" answer (will clear) feels intuitively correct to learners. The rule is mechanical: after these conjunctions, no will. If the blank is inside a when/after/before/once/until clause and one option is a present tense and another is a will-future, the present tense wins.
Pattern 3: Since-clauses, by-phrases, and the perfect aspects
Certain time expressions lock the main verb into a specific perfect tense.
- since + point in time forces the present perfect (or present perfect continuous): Sales have risen since the new pricing launched.
- by + future time forces the future perfect: The audit will have been completed by Friday.
- by + past time forces the past perfect: By the time the manager arrived, the team had finished the report.
Here the anchor is the time phrase rather than a second verb, but the logic is identical: the visible element fixes the aspect. When you see by the time, expect a perfect tense and check whether the frame is past (past perfect) or future (future perfect).
A timeline-reading procedure
When a verb item has a second verb or a binding time phrase, run these steps instead of choosing the "natural-sounding" form:
- Find the anchor. Locate the other verb in the sentence (often a reporting verb) or the binding time expression (since, by, when, after, by the time).
- Fix the reference point. Decide whether the anchor sets a past, present, or future reference.
- Place the blank relative to the anchor. Is the blanked action before, simultaneous with, or after the anchor's reference point?
- Choose the tense that expresses that relationship. Earlier-than-past → past perfect; future-after-a-time-clause → present; duration-from-a-point → present perfect.
- Reject the isolation-natural option. The trap is usually the tense that sounds right if you ignore the anchor. Consciously discard it once you have done steps 1–4.
This procedure overlaps with the conditional-reading discipline, because conditionals are themselves a fixed pairing of tenses across two clauses — the same "one clause constrains the other" logic. If this pattern interests you, compare the structured approach in our conditionals and counterfactuals guide, where reading the scenario the sentence sets up is again the key move.
Worked examples
Example 1. The director announced that the merger __ approved by the board. Anchor: announced (past reporting verb). The approval happened before the announcement, so we need a past-anterior form: had been. Trap option: has been, which ignores the past anchor.
Example 2. Please notify the warehouse once the invoice __ verified. Anchor: once (time conjunction) with a future main clause (please notify is effectively a future instruction). No will after once; the present is required: has been (or is). Trap option: will be.
Example 3. The figures show that revenue __ steadily since the rebranding. Anchor: since the rebranding (point in time). Since forces the present perfect: has grown. Trap option: grew (past simple), which cannot pair with since.
Turning this into durable accuracy
Sequence-of-tenses errors recur because the rules feel counter-intuitive — no will after when contradicts a learner's instinct every time until it is fully automatic. The way to make it automatic is targeted, spaced repetition rather than re-deriving the rule in the moment. Tag each missed item by its pattern (reported speech, time clause, since/by) in your error log so the same family resurfaces on a review cycle, exactly as described in our error log design for spaced review cycles.
Once the three patterns are wired in, this entire question family converts from a coin-flip into a forced answer. You stop asking "which tense sounds best" and start asking "which tense does the anchor allow" — and most of the time, the anchor allows exactly one.