5 exercises — present simple vs. continuous, past simple, present perfect, and future forms as used in bug reports, incidents, post-mortems, and sprint planning.
0 / 5 completed
Quick reference
Present simple:The API returns JSON. — facts, specs, documentation
Present continuous:The service is failing right now. — happening at this moment
Past simple:The server crashed at 02:14. — completed event at a specific time
Present perfect:The bug has been present since v2.4. — past event with current relevance
Future (going to / will / continuous):We are deploying on Wednesday. — plans and schedules
1 / 5
Choose the correct sentence for a technical documentation context describing a constant system behaviour:
Use present simple for facts, habits, and permanent technical truths. Documentation always describes what the system does (not "is doing"). Compare: "The function validates the input" vs. "The function is validating the input" — the first is a specification; the second describes a single event in progress. Present simple is the default tense for API docs, specifications, and README files.
2 / 5
A teammate messages you during an incident. Complete their message: "The load balancer _____ (distribute) traffic unevenly right now — I _____ (look) at the logs and _____ (see) a problem with one of the nodes."
Present continuous (is + -ing) describes actions happening right now or around the current moment. During incidents, engineers switch to continuous to signal urgency: "The service is failing" (right now) vs. "The service fails" (a known pattern). Note: see stays in simple form here because it's a stative verb — verbs of perception and mental state (see, know, understand, want) are rarely used in continuous form in formal English.
3 / 5
In a bug report you write about an issue that started in the past and is still relevant now. Which sentence is most appropriate?
Use present perfect (have/has + past participle) when a past event has a current result or relevance. "Has been present since v2.4.1" means: it started then and is still happening. Compare with past simple: "The memory leak appeared in v2.4.1" — grammatically correct but implies the story is finished (past), which is wrong if the bug is still open. The keyword "since" almost always signals present perfect.
4 / 5
Complete this post-mortem summary: "The server _____ (crash) at 02:14 UTC. The on-call engineer _____ (page, passive) at 02:19 and _____ (restore) service by 03:05."
Use past simple for a completed sequence of events at a specific time in the past. Post-mortems narrate what happened with timestamps — that's a signal to use past simple throughout. "The server crashed at 02:14" — specific time → past simple. Present perfect would be wrong here because we're not connecting to the present; we're telling a finished story. The passive "was paged" is standard: we care about what happened to the service, not who did it.
5 / 5
In a sprint planning meeting you say: "We _____ the new checkout flow next Wednesday." Which option is most natural and professional?
Both present continuous and present simple can express future plans in English. "We are deploying next Wednesday" (present continuous) implies it's already arranged — most natural for sprint planning where dates are set. "We deploy next Wednesday" (present simple) works when referring to a fixed schedule or release calendar. "Will deploy" is also possible but often implies a decision made right now, which is less typical for pre-planned sprints. In practice, IT professionals use all three — the key is not mixing tenses inconsistently within the same message.