The subjunctive usually refers to things that have not happened yet, whether we really want them to happen (commands, wishes) or not (suppositions, conditional statements, fearing). The subjunctive appears in very specific contexts; we shall cover the most common ones, and some of the less common ones!  Please note that the subjunctive on the GMAT is not common! If your Verbal scores are low, direct your studies toward:

• subject-verb agreement
• verb tense, comparisons
• parallelism (the GMAT loves parallelism so much, the two of them should get married)

The subjunctive exists in many languages, though other languages use it more than we do in English, where it’s a somewhat strange and slowly disappearing form.

What does it look like?

The present subjunctive looks exactly the same as both the imperative (used in direct orders, like Eat it! or Don’t look!) and the part of the infinitive that isn’t the word to (to sleep or to dream).  Some call this the “plain form” of the verb, since it’s the same in all three settings (win, lose, draw).  It doesn’t get different endings for being in the past tense (like take vs. taken) or in the third person singular (I eat vs. she eats).  Since Sentence Correction on the GMAT is completely dominated by third-person verbs (he/she/it jumps, they jump), the subjunctive will stand out more often:

Indicative (“normal”):  She stays at home when it snows.
Subjunctive:  I suggested that she stay at home when it snows.

It definitely stands out!  You won’t be able to tell a friend “She stay at home when it snows!” without your friend wondering whether you’ve been hit in the head too many times, because the subjunctive doesn’t live on its own, outside of a few set phrases that are basically fossils, remnants of a time when the subjunctive was more common in English (and we’ll cover those too).  When you need a present subjunctive, think of how you would form the infinitive (to sing, to cut) and remove the to:  that’s your present subjunctive (or “plain form”).

The past subjunctive looks the same as the normal (indicative) form, except in the verb to be.

The future subjunctive as it is traditionally taught looks different from the indicative and other subjunctives in all forms; some say that because it’s so different, we should call it something else and not the future subjunctive at all.  I mention this because your understanding of how this works is deeply affected by the way you were taught (for most non-native speakers of English) or the fact that you weren’t taught it at all (for most native speakers); I didn’t learn about the subjunctive until I studied other languages!  No matter how (or whether) you were taught the subjunctive, though, these are the forms you could see on the GMAT.

I’ve made this chart for your reference; I will include all of this information in every installment of this series so that you don’t have to refer back to this article:

I’ve highlighted the places where the subjunctive differs from the “normal” indicative.  In the future tense, you see that I have “will/shall”; traditionally, “shall” is the simple first-person future form (I/we shall, but he/she/it/you/they will), though you are not likely to see it often in American English.  “Shall” can still be used to show certainty or obligation (You shall not pass!), and also appears in legal language.

Where will I see it?

There are some common places the subjunctive can appear in English; we will be covering all of these in this series:

• wishes (I wish that I were able to drive a motorcycle or may the best man win)
• suppositions (If I were to go to the party, I wouldn’t finish painting the house)
• demands and commands (She demanded that he leave her house immediately)
• suggestions and proposals (I suggest that she think about it more)
• conditions contrary to fact (If I were master of the universe, college tuition would be free)
• statements of necessity (It’s necessary that they be there for your safety)
• fearing with lest (I filled her car with gas lest she run out on her cross-country trip)
• idiomatic phrases  (As it were or be that as it may or . . . need only . . .)

Conditions Contrary to Fact

Similar to the suppositions discussed in an earlier article, conditions that are counterfactual (or hypothetical) use the subjunctive when the consequence is either not likely or known to be completely untrue.  These conditional statements come in two forms, present and past, and the form of the subjunctive used will change.

Present contrary to fact conditions

Present contrary to fact conditions use the past subjunctive with a conditional word (would, could, should, might) and a plain form main verb to express the consequence of an event considered false or highly unlikely by the speaker:

• If she pulled a gun on me, I could use my martial arts training to kick it out of her hand!
• If I were rich beyond my wildest dreams, I might consider buying you a cheeseburger.
• If we needed to work any more hours this month, we would need food delivery and toilets in every cubicle to make more time for work.

Past contrary to fact conditions

The past versions of the counterfactual conditional sentence require a past perfect (or “pluperfect”) verb  in the conditional clause; there is no difference between this form in the indicative and the subjunctive.  The main verb still requires a conditional word.  The conditional part of the sentence is in the past tense, but the consequence can be in the present tense:

• If I had driven just a little faster yesterday, I might have been caught in that terrible traffic jam that was shown on the news.
• If we had purchased five shares of Microsoft for $105 at its IPO in 1986, those shares would now be worth over $37,000.

A GMAT-style question:

Mr. Miller would have gotten away with his elaborate scheme to scare away tourists from the seaside village, if those four teenagers and their dog should not have meddled with his plans.

A.  if those four teenagers and their dog should not have meddled with his plans
B.  if those four teenagers and their dog were not going to meddle with his plans
C.  if the meddling of those four teenagers and their dog had not been occurring with his plans
D. if those four teenagers and their dog had not meddled with his plans
E. if the meddling of those four teenagers and their dog had not occurred

Read the next article, Part 6: Statements of Necessity, for the answer to this question!

Looking for the answer to Part 4′s answer? Read Part 4: Suggestions and Proposals for a GMAT-style supposition question.  Then come back to get the answer.

(The answer for Part 4: Suggestions and Proposal’s question is E)