Answer: “wished that she were able to fly; now, as a pilot, she does” This sentence requires a shift in verb voice and tense. As a child, Melissa wished that something were the case, and that requires the subjunctive mood “Melissa wished that she were able to fly” (note that “was” would be incorrect as it suggests that she really did fly as a child).  But nowadays it’s no longer a wish: she’s a pilot so she does fly.  Note that the verbs “is” or “does” have to carry over a verb that has already been stated (“fly”).  The word “is” cannot work, because you would never say “she is fly” but instead would have to say “she is flying.”  But you can say “she does fly,” making “she does” correct.

 If you want to play soccer on Tuesday, he or she must call the park first. This sentence does NOT correct the error in the shift of person. “Someone” is the third person and “you” is the second person so these tenses do not match. The same goes for “If you want to play soccer on Tuesday, he or she must call the park first.” “You” is the second person and “he or she” is third-person singular so they are mismatched. The other choices are all in the same tense and have corrected the error.

The word “take” in the first portion of the sentence is written in an imperative mood while “you should call” in the second half is written in an indicative mood so there is a shift in mood. An imperative mood gives a command while an indicative mood states a fact or asks a question. In order to correct the shift, both parts of the sentence must be in the same mood. By correcting the sentence with “and then call the doctor.” both halves are now written in an imperative mood.

This answer choice has an improper shift in verb tense. “Last month” sets the sentence in the past tense, “threw” is also past tense, but then it shifts to future tense with “will recover”. If this is happening during the same game it should say “and recovered a fumble” to maintain the same tense throughout. The other choices are all in the same tense and there are no errors in shifts.

The first portion of the sentence is in active voice and the subjects of the sentence (the two brothers) are performing the action. The second half is in the passive voice “was heard” so the subjects are no longer being active but instead are acted upon. When changing the phrasing to “and they heard a screeching sound.” both halves are in active voice and there is no error in shifts.

In the question there is a shift in the number related to the pronouns. “Someone” is singular while “them” is plural so there is an error with the selected pronouns. All the other answer choices have corrected this error but “This afternoon when people call for me, tell him or her that I went to the store for groceries and will call back later.” is still mismatched. “People” is a plural pronoun and “him or her” is a singular pronoun so it did NOT correct the error.