Sentence Correction

vikram4689 wrote:i saw there is some confusion regarding this question and some say that correct question is below and OA is A. I have sent a PM to RON to share his views

San Franciscans of the 1890's mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
1. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
2. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will made this boast a reality.
3. yet a powerful municipal within 20 years will make this boast a reality.
4. yet this boast had become a reality within 20 years because of a powerful will municipally
5. yet within 20 years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality.

this is not a good question. two of the answer choices (#1 and #2) are perfectly good, and a third (#5) is different in a way that's not "wrong enough" to be wrong on the real test.

1 vs. 2 -- in this particular context, either the past or the past perfect is legitimate. the simple past treats the event described simply as an event on a historical timeline; the past perfect emphasizes its completion (i.e., emphasizes the state of affairs after LA had become a true world city.)

1/2 vs. 5 -- there's a difference in meaning: in the first two, the municipal will of los angeles is described as "powerful", while in #5 the reality of the situation itself is described that way.
the problem is that both of these interpretations actually make sense. generally, when official problems have changes in meaning, the wrong answer will have a meaning that doesn't make sense in the given context.

avik.ch --

1/

avik.ch wrote:There is another version of this same question : "will had" in A. I am not quiet sure of this form - never heard of it.The past form of "will have" is "would have" ------- I dont know what is "will had"? As the past form of "may have" is "might have" and not "may had" - always the first word of the verb takes the tense form - then rest remains in its base form.

in these sentences, "will" is not a helping verb; it's a NOUN that means, roughly, "a strong desire and ambition".
"municipal" is an adjective (meaning, roughly, "of the city").
so, "a strong municipal will had made..." = NOUN had made...
"a strong municipal will made..." = NOUN made...


2/
as far as the past perfect vs. past issue --

READ THIS WARNING FIRST

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** WARNING **
for non-native speakers of english (as well as every other language in the world -- this is not a unique feature of english), verb tenses are MUCH harder than any other aspect of the language.
in fact, it's almost impossible for any non-native speaker of any language to master verb tenses fully and completely. even when an intelligent speaker has been using his or her second language exclusively for decades, he or she will still routinely make verb-tense errors.

therefore:
DO NOT study verb tense until you have 100% MASTERED the other MAJOR sc topics.
* parallelism
* pronoun use
* subject-verb agreement
* modifier placement
if you cannot identify these error types literally one hundred percent of the time, then do not study other error types -- especially verb tense (which should be the absolute bottom priority for non-native speakers) -- until you can.

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READ THIS SECOND, for a more general treatment of the perfect tenses

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/pos ... tml#p58397