I'm having difficulties to decide whether there's a possibility to use Present Simple and Present Perfect. What I mean is that there is a graph and I have to describe it: the economy ___ at the moment (improve). The correct answer is is improving, of course. However, if the sentence didn't contain "at the moment", would it be the correct way to say the economy improves (like a general fact) or the economy has improved (the graph shows data from 2000 till today, for example)? Thank you!
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1 Answer
I don't think that "the economy improves" is quite right because you are writing about a continuing process, so "the economy is improving" would be preferred.
If your graph shows only information about the past with no indication of future trends or predictions, then "the economy has improved" is true and grammatically correct. It would not be unusual, however, for such a graph to be labelled "the economy is improving" or "... is still improving" if the trend in the immediate past shows no sign of faltering. Such a labelling makes an assumption that the data in the graph are completely up to date and will not be revised downwards, which might be rather a brave assumption with economic data.
The choice between "... is improving" and "... has improved" is not grammatical in this case but a question of how cautious/prudent you feel you have to be in labelling the graph.
