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We’re going to continue on our Meaning streak because so many students have told me that they love this topic. This one, though, is not going to address modifiers (at least, not primarily). There are other ways to test meaning!

I’ve also been getting a lot of requests to show more example sentences of various constructions (as I did in an article a couple of weeks go). I’m going to do that going forward, but just note that we’re always going to use a test problem as the basis for discussion. I could write a million different sentences off of the top of my head – but my goal here is not to teach you how to become a master English writer. We care only about the specific constructions that the GMAT tests, so let’s use real problems to guide our studies. Otherwise, you’ll be studying English grammar and syntax for the next five years!

This problem is from GMATPrep®. Set your timer for 1 minute 15 seconds and go for it!

* Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern Texas.

(A) Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,
(B) In less than 35 years since releasing African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,
(C) In less than the 35 years since African honeybees had been released outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,
(D) It took less than 35 years from the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, when
(E) It took less than the 35 years after the time that African honeybees were released outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, and then”

What did you think of the original sentence?

My first reaction was: wait, what? Why does it say “had migrated?” That sounded not-quite-right to me. Of course, that portion of the sentence isn’t underlined, so it has to be right!

So I realized I have one of two things, here: either I need to fix some problem in the underlined portion or this is a hard problem and they just tricked me into thinking it “sounded funny” when there’s nothing wrong with it.

In general, when you think something sounds funny, go figure out what specific rule is being broken, or whether the meaning is illogical or ambiguous. If you can’t find anything, then maybe your ear just fooled you.

So, let’s examine this. Why was I surprised by the usage of “had migrated” in the non-underlined portion? What is that – what part of speech? How is it supposed to be used?

“Had migrated” is a verb tense construction. Specifically, it’s an example of the past perfect tense, which is a complex past tense construction. We use past perfect in one specific situation: when we have two (or more) actions taking place at different times in the past, and we want to indicate which one happened before the other.

We use past perfect to indicate the older, longer-ago action and either present perfect or a time marker to indicate the not-as-old action or timeframe. For example:

Before the age of 30, she had changed careers three times.

When she decided to go to graduate school, she had already changed careers three times.

In both sentences, the action that occurred first was the act of changing careers. First she changed careers three times, then she turned 30. First she changed careers three times, then she decided to go to graduate school. All of these actions are in the past, but some happened earlier than others in the past.

In the first sentence, we have a time marker to indicate the later timeframe or action: “before the age of 30.” In the second sentence, the later action is indicated by the simple past tense: “she decided.” Both of these constructions are acceptable to indicate the later of the two events or timeframes.

In both sentences, we see the same past perfect construction: “she had changed.” To construct the past perfect, we always begin with the word “had” and then we add the past participle of the verb we want to use. Regular past participles end with the letters “ed”: had changed, had worked, had played. There are also irregular past participles: had eaten, had gone, had seen.

Let’s go back to our original problem. The non-underlined portion contains “had migrated,” so the underlined portion must contain either a time marker or an action presented in the simple past tense. And here’s where our ear can be fooled.

Many people will naturally think of the action as the release of the honeybees. First, they were released; later, they migrated. That’s certainly true, and if the sentence had used the verb form of the word “release,” then answer A would be wrong. But the word “release” is in noun form in the sentence. We don’t have any verbs in the simple past tense at all. Instead, we have a time marker.

What is the time marker? “Less than 35 years after.” Did the migration of the honeybees occur before or after “less than 35 years after?”

Before! First, the bees were released. Then, they migrated north. Finally, it was “35 years after” the release, by which time the bees had already migrated. This is a similar construction to our “before the age of 30” time marker above. Let’s try another example.

Less than 10 years after her graduation from college, she had changed careers three times.

It still sounds a little funny doesn’t it? It’s the “less than” that’s key: the action that occurs after the comma (“she had changed”) occurs less than 10 years after her graduation. The changes occurred before that 10 years passed.

Okay. So the tense “problem” in the original sentence is not a problem at all. I don’t immediately see anything else wrong with the original, and I also have an idea of how they’re going to change some of the other answers (they’re going to want to try to set the trap for those of us who think the tense is wrong), so I decide at this point to go look at the other answers. I’m thinking specifically about how they might mess up the meaning of the sentence using verb tenses – since they almost got me to think that the meaning of the original sentence was wrong by using what seemed at first like the wrong tense.

Answer B doesn’t contain a regular tensed verb. Answer C does, though! It says the bees “had been released.” So, let’s see, the release happens first. That does make sense, because you have to release them before they can migrate. Then the migration happens after that, so we need to go change that tense to simple present… oh, wait, we can’t. It’s not underlined.

If I leave both “had been released” and “had migrated” in the past perfect tense, then the sentence is saying that these things both happened at the same time. That doesn’t make sense (illogical meaning!), so answer C is incorrect.

Bonus Question: what’s the difference between saying “had been released” and “had released?” (Answer at end.)

Answer D doesn’t contain a tensed verb, but answer E does. This answer says the bees “were released,” which is simple past. This would mean that the bees first migrated and then were released – again, messed-up meaning! Eliminate E.

We’ve narrowed the answers to A, B, and D. I noticed something about B when I was looking for tensed verbs. It says “since releasing honeybees…”

Less than 10 minutes after releasing a helium-filled balloon, the child could no longer see it in the sky.

The word “releasing” is indicating an action performed by someone or something. Someone or something is releasing (or was releasing) the balloon. That someone or something has to be placed after the comma (this is a standard noun-modifier construction). If I want to talk about the balloon after the comma, then I need to change the structure:

Less than 10 minutes after being released, the helium-filled balloon had floated out of sight.

The child is releasing the balloon, but the balloon is being released.

Okay, so that eliminates answer B, because it can’t be the case that the descendants of the African honeybees were the ones releasing their ancestors! We’re down to A and D.

Let’s look at D more closely. What’s the difference between answer D and these sentences:

It took less than 35 years for the lazy student to finish business school.

It took less than 35 years to mow the lawn.

“It took less than 35 years” is the same in all of the sentences, of course. What about the rest of the sentences?

The construction “it took less than <some amount of time>” needs to be followed by “for <something to occur>” or “to <do something>” at some point in the sentence. These are idioms. Logically, the “something to occur” in our problem is the migration of the bees. Answer D, though, uses “when” to introduce the part about the migration. Try that out in the simpler sentence construction:

It took less than 35 years, when the lazy student had finished business school.

I’m still waiting for them to tell me what took less than 35 years! It took less than 35 years, when the lazy student had finished business school, to find a job?

Whatever it is, the structure of D is incomplete because I don’t know what took less than 35 years to do or occur. The correct answer is A.

Answer to Bonus Question: “Had released” represents active voice and “had been released” represents passive voice. I had already released my little brother 10 minutes before my mom came home and yelled at me for teasing him. My little brother had already been released by me before…

We use active voice when the subject is performing the action: I ate the pizza. We use passive voice when the subject is having the action performed on it: The pizza was eaten by me.

Key Takeaways for Meaning and Verb Tenses

(1) Verb tenses often end up being about meaning in the end, because the usage of the incorrect verb tense usually makes the meaning illogical or incorrect. In this problem, answers C and E both had illogical meanings because the verb tenses were used incorrectly, and correct answer A was very tempting to eliminate because it sounded like the tense usage messed up the meaning (until we actually checked the details).

(2) When the original sentence either sounds funny / awkward or is outright difficult to understand in the first place, try to figure out why. Which part sounds awkward or is hard to understand? If you aren’t sure, leave answer choice A in. If you can spot the problem, cross off A and use that issue to launch your path through the problem.

(3) Modifiers and idioms are everywhere. Even though our main focus on this problem was verb tenses, we still used modifier and idiom rules to eliminate some answers. Study these areas intensively!

* GMATPrep® questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.