Congratulation…! I’m happy for you.

Your writing in your comment is also excellent. However, if I were you, I would use the simple past tense.

After understanding the explanations for the passive voice patterns, I tried the practice test 5 and the result was I AM UNBEATABLE.

OR :

After I had understood the explanations for the passive voice patterns, I tried the practice test 5 and the result was I AM UNBEATABLE.

Good news for you…!

Practice test ini telah diupdate. Tiap soal telah diberi penjelasannya masing-masing kenapa opsi tertentu benar sedangkan opsi lainnya salah.

Please have a look ! Namun, jika penjelasan tersebut masih perlu further explanations, don’t hesitate to let us know. Enjoy…!

Hi h4ide,

It seems to me that you don’t have any problems in writing. However, I’d like to remind you not to let yourself get used to writing a sentence without its subject.

As for reading, what kind of problems do you have?
The main purpose in reading is to find the main idea of each sentence or at least the sentences in the beginning, in the middle or in the end of each paragraph in order to get the main idea of such a paragraph. As long as you can figure out where the subject, the verb, the complement, and the modifier of a sentence end, you will not have any difficulties in reading. Another factor that will also determine your reading proficiency is, of course, how large your vocabulary is. The larger you have, the easier you read.

Setelah membaca kembali reply saya di atas, mungkin muncul pertanyaan berikut:
“Apakah starting point-nya selalu sejak seseorang lahir?”

Jawabannya adalah “tidak selalu”.

Kalau kalimat tidak dilengkapi dengan keterangan waktu, yang paling tahu starting point-nya adalah si pembicara. Di kalimat yang LarX berikan tidak ada keterangan waktu, so starting point yang dimaksudkan LarX bisa saja “sejak lahir”, atau “sejak waktu tertentu in the past” lainnya.

Since I moved to Bali, I have gone to Bandung only once.

Sekarang jelas bahwa starting point dari kalimat present perfect tense ini adalah “since I moved to Bali” (yaitu, sejak aku pindah ke Bali). NOTE: clause ini harus dalam simple past tense karena action MOVE-nya terjadi dan sudah berakhir in the past. Pindah ke Bali-nya kapan?

Since I moved to Bali in 1999, I have gone to Bandung only once.

EVER vs NEVER

Ever = pernah; Never = tidak/belum pernah;

Misalkan ada conversation sbb,

A. Neil Amstrong has gone to the moon.
Have you gone to the moon yet? (Pernahkan kamu ke bulan?)
B. No, I haven’t gone to the moon yet. (Belum, aku belum pernah pergi ke bulan).

Walapun tanpa ever or never, conversation ini sebenarnya sudah mengandung makna “pernah“. Kalau kita ingin memberi penekanan lebih (stressing) terhadap makna “pernah” tersebut, kita dapat tambahkan ever or never. Tapi ingat, dalam present perfect tense, ever umumnya hanya digunakan pada yes/no question, sedangkan never digunakan pada kalimat bermakna negatif dan information question.

Have you ever gone to the moon yet? (Pernahkan kamu ke bulan?)
No, I have never gone to the moon yet. (Belum, aku belum pernah ke bulan). NOTE: NOT setelah have dihilangkan karena sudah terinclude di kata never.
Why have you never gone to the moon?

Dan khusus untuk never,jika diletakkan di awal kalimat maka auxiliary ditempatkan sebelum subject.

Never have I gone to the moon yet. (Belum pernah aku ke bulan.)

1. The word even has more than 10 meanings, probably. The best way to ascertain yourself is by looking up your dictionary.

2. Yes, one of the ‘s usage is to indicate possession or to whom something belongs. Its usage is similar to that of possessive adjectives, such as my, your, his, her, its, their, and our.

This is my car.
That is Susan’s car.

In this case, if you have mentioned about Susan beforehand, you can use the possessive adjective her, as well.

That is her car.

because the person to whom you’re talking will understand that you’re referring the pronoun her to Susan.

1. Beforehand = sebelumnya.

2. Bothering me?
No, not at all. In fact, the more interactive the blog’s visitors are, the happier I am. But keep in mind that sometimes I have to do some other things, so please forgive me if I can’t reply your questions right away.

3. CAN vs COULD.
Yes, in that case your teacher was correct but we need to speak politely not only to older person, though. There’s nothing wrong, in fact even better, to say the following to a kindergarten boy,

“Could you please tell me where Budi’s house is?“

A quite comprehensive discussion about this regards has been done in the following link: Penggunaan will vs would dan can vs could.