October 20, 2014　=========
☆ peak　ピークに達する
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When something “peaks” it reaches its highest level or highest value. For example:
The US oil production peaked in 1970 and this lead to the 1973 oil crisis.
Although he is still working now, his career peaked during the 1990’s.
During the summer the temperatures peaked at over 40 degrees.
As you can see, these sentences are in the past tense. You can probably guess why, right? Most of the time we don’t know that something is peaking until after it has actually peaked! For example, we can’t know that the summer temperatures have peaked at over 40 degrees until the summer is over and we can all the data.
Similarly, with oil production or production of something, we don’t really know whether something has peaked or not, until we start to see a downward trend. Of course you can use this word to say that you are predicting something will peak. For example:
The government predicts that gasoline prices will peak at around $1.65 per litre.
The weather maps show that the summer heat will peak at around 40 degrees next week.
So, it can be a past or future – or even present tense sentence (e.g. I think my career is peaking.) however, past tense use is more common.
Bye,
Chris