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Imagine a political party winning the election and becoming the ruling party in a country. Despite the fact that the platform that it had presented many people deemed impractical, the new government starts enthusiastically implementing it.

If I want to say that five years later the time came for the government to check on the results of its work and on whether they corresponded to the results predicted in the platform, what phrase would best fit in here?

  1. But five years later the time came to do the first checks.

  2. But five years later the time came to make the first checks.

  3. But five years later the time came to do first checks.

  4. But five years later the time came to make first checks.

  5. But five years later the time came to do the first reality check.

  6. But five years later the time came to do the first review.

  7. But five years later the time came to do the first checking.

  8. Or what?

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    Do you actually live in a democracy? Five years is a bit unrealistically long. The voters in a democracy want to see results straight away. You often hear and read of a government's, or leader's, 'first hundred days'.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Mar 11, 2020 at 17:58
  • @MichaelHarvey 'Do you actually live in a democracy?' - :) :) :) That was just an example.
    – brilliant
    Commented Mar 11, 2020 at 22:01
  • Are you open to fully rewording the sentence? What you are trying to say may be more easily conveyed if you reworded your sentence.
    – AIQ
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 5:45
  • @AIQ - I am open to rewording it; however, the meaning that is being conveyed must stay the same, that is, the fact that 5 years later the time came for the government to reflect on what it had done and assess the results of its work in order to see how much the results were corresponding to the projected achievements in their platform (program).
    – brilliant
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 7:21

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Of the options you presented, the following all sound reasonably idiomatic:

But five years later the time to do the first review came.
But five years later the time to do the first checks came.
But five years later the time to make the first checks came.

"review" does sound more formal than "check", so in a formal setting (such as reporting government actions), it may be a better choice. Also, you could use a verb like "perform" instead of "do" or "make", which also sounds a bit more formal.

But five years later the time to perform the first review came.

You could also use "review" as a verb to be a bit more explicit about what's being reviewed:

But five years later the time to review the results came.

(This would probably be the way I would phrase it, if I were to choose)

The following is reasonably idiomatic, but potentially has some extra implications:

But five years later the time to do the first reality check came.

The term "reality check" is usually negative (it generally refers to when something did not turn out the way somebody hoped/expected it to), so the use of it here already implies that the results are not going to be good (or at least are expected to be not good). That may be what you want, or it may not. Also, "reality check" is a fairly informal term, so it may not be what you want if you're speaking more formally.

The following are either ungrammatical or just sound fairly strange, so I wouldn't use them:

But five years later the time to do first checks came. (don't use)
But five years later the time to make first checks came. (don't use)
But five years later the time to do the first checking came. (don't use)

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