ok so I was testing my English (I learned American English) and came across a test here.
Is this correct ?:

Please select the best word to complete the following sentence:
You ________ better see a doctor.
Answer:had

and

Please select the best word to complete the following sentence:
It ________ my brother.
Answer:is ages since I saw

to me they sound wrong but maybe in British they are correct?

Both "correct" answers sound and read fine to me.

I suppose being English is an advantage though...What were your answers ?

That's where you're wrong

more seriously, was the test just like that ? no story to introduce an idea of time or action ?

The first one sounds good to me, the second one sounds better to me as: It's been ages or It has been ages.

Plus I wanted to set in stone the 'bring English' line

test can be found here :
http://www.esl-languages.com/en/stud...test/index.htm

no story or context. I got 38 correct out of 40 so those 2 got me stumped
really ???? this British is so weird

It's = It is

It is been ages... X
It has been ages :-)
It is ages ... Maybe.

Verbally, "It has" is lazily spoken as "Its"...

This is correct though I think 'you should' rather than 'you had better' is more commonly used in the US. It's used on both sides of the Atlantic.


This is UK English with the idiom being 'it's ages since...'. Americans would use 'it has been ages since' or something like 'I've not seen my brother in ages'.

True, but again, that's why I said how it 'sounds' right to me. I've actually never really passed an enlish course and am probably legally illiterate in english, but it sure sounds good to people when I speak it

cool thanks everyone. amazing though the differences between the 2 .

Indeed, such colloquialisms from a non-native English speaker will endear rather than isolate.

OMG, I got a perfect score. How can I be a native speaker?! Cleverly designed questions to trip up non-natives on the prepositional phrases. Definitely British English skewed.

Good job for 38 out of those 40!

sadly I'm a born, raised and native English speaker. hehehehe

Good to know. I studied British English but to me "it's (=has) been ages since..." sounds more natural.

Sadly, and I do hate to out my pedantic side at this but, "it's" for "it has" is no longer just a spoken problem as it shows up in the printed word far, far more frequently than I would consider acceptable. In a language with so few hard and fast rules, this is to be expected, but old cranks like me can still sit on the lawn, drink beer and tell the damn noisy illiterate kids to get the f-off my lawn.

just did it.

it's nice I still have the same level : Upper Intermediate

I agree, I am getting stubborn in my old age. English is a living language, driven by the young. They set the direction. I grew up caned to believe that an apostrophe would only ever indicate a single missing letter, and not many.

Well, this is where the natives distinguish themselves from the rest as we come from a language which has no real rules or, well, we have rules, we just break them all the time. English is overall highly contextual, idiomatic and colloquial so the main rule is that if someone understands you, you're good to go. English is also an incredibly florid and economical language though this is something of a paradox. 'it's ages' is a reflection of the more economical side where you suspend your grammar rules and understand that it omits with understanding the 'has been'.

If this generation is any indication of where the English language is going, I'm going to lock my child in the library and never let her out. Kids today....

(And, yeah, I'm from the generation, too, where term papers did not allow for use of contractions. Nuns and Jesuits....)

I think it's fine without filling a word in the blank. In fact, I'd say it's even incorrect if using "had" because then "to*" should be in front of "see".
*I take that back... and agree that "should" is more appropriate than "had better" because "better" really isn't a verb... I'm probably over-analyzing though.

If you hadn't given the answer, I'd have no idea what they want in there. First, it says "select the best word"... meaning 1 word to fill the blank. They used 5 words to fill the blank. It's a bit misleading. And using just one word... I would use "was" as in "don't blame me! it was my brother!"
* Ha ok I see it is multiple choice... so that explains the answer.

And I just took the test and got 39 out of 40. Thank god it was multiple choice or I would have failed.

I missed this one
Question 25: Please select the best word to complete the following sentence:
He told me that he ________ in Spain the previous year.
Answer:had been working

On of the most common errors I see in written English is the use of the word than instead then.
For example, "Okay, I'll see you later than.", instead of, "Okay, I'll see you later then."
Any other quick tips for english studiers out there?