I have come across such a gapped sentence in a placement test for pre-intermediate-intermediate students to the course book, Choices by Adrian Tennant (2012):
A new school … in our city.
A student is supposed to choose one of the following four options:
1) has built
2) has been built
3) is built
4) built
According to the answer key the correct answer is #2 (has been built).
My question is, since there is no context whatsoever, if answer #3 is also possible? If yes, what is the difference in shades of meaning between these two?
Best Answer
You could say
A new school is built in our town every year now that gold has been discovered and the population is growing so rapidly. In fact, one is still being built right around the corner.
But if you're talking about one school in particular, and wish to say that the construction is complete, it would be:
A new school has been built in our town.
As StoneyB says of telic events, "if the event is complete, it is no longer current, so we use the perfect".
The following spoken statement would be unidiomatic; I could only guess at what it might mean:
A new school is built in our town. (not ok)