Past perfect (had + past participle)
SAT glossary · Reading & Writing
Definition
The tense the examination actually tests, under a strict rule: use 'had' only when there are two past events and you must mark which came first ('By the time the survey was published, the site had been destroyed'). With only one past event, 'had' is wrong.
Past perfect (had + past participle) in plain English
Past perfect tense (formed with 'had' plus a past-tense verb, like 'had been destroyed') is used in a very specific situation: when a sentence involves TWO separate past events, and you need to clearly mark which one happened FIRST, before the other. For example: 'By the time the survey was published, the site had been destroyed' — the destruction (had been destroyed) happened BEFORE the publishing (was published), and 'had' signals that earlier timing. If a sentence only has ONE past event happening, using 'had' is simply incorrect — there's nothing for it to be signaling as 'earlier than.'
Also called: had + past participle
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