Sentence Correction

Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciative increase in the level of the river resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before .

A)restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciative increase in the level of the river

B)restricting the use of water would continue because there had not been any appreciative increase in the river's level that

C)the use of water would continue to be restricted because not any appreciable increase in the river's level had

D)restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had

E)Using water would continue being restricted because not any appreciable increase in the level of the river

OA
[spoiler]D--- Please explain why "A" is wrong [spoiler][/spoiler]

canbtg wrote:Please explain why "A" is wrong.

At first A looks ok doesn't it?

There is a tense issue though.

The officials made an announcement based on something that happened before the announcement. Intermittent showers had fallen, and no appreciable increase had resulted.

Often the optimal way to handle talking about events that happened in the past is to use the simple past when talking about the more recent event and the past perfect for talking about an event that occurred earlier than the other one did.

In this sentence, therefore, the past perfect construction showers that had fallen is used, and that is a tipoff as to why A is wrong.

In the sentence creating using choice A, the simple past, resulted, is used, where the past perfect, had resulted, would make more sense given the sequence of the events being described.

Notice that in D had is added, and thus the past perfect construction had resulted, is created.

One key takeaway here is that by noticing the construction used in the non underlined portion of the sentence, the had fallen, one can get a clue regarding what the question creator feels is the correct tense to use when talking about the events preceding the announcement. Often it's the case that if one is not sure about something in an SC question, one use a hacking method such as that one to get to the OA.

Hi Marty Murray
Thanks for your explanation, but I still a little confused.
In this sentence, there are three verbs,ie. announced,resulted,fell. In order to decide the right tense, we need to figure out the timeframe about this three actions. According to my understanding, intermittent showers fell first, and then there were some results, and finally, there was a official announcement. All there three actions happened in the past.
Normally when we decided whether to use the past perfect, we just compare the time sequence of two actions that happened in the past. If action B happened before action A, then we for action B, we use the past perfect contruction, and for action A, we use the simple past construction. however, in this sentence, there are three actions( Action A, Action B, Action C,from the lastest to the oldest) happened in the past, how can we identify the right tense for the action B ?
Looking forwards your reply
thanks
Jane

Janewq wrote:Hi Marty Murray
Thanks for your explanation, but I still a little confused.
In this sentence, there are three verbs,ie. announced,resulted,fell. In order to decide the right tense, we need to figure out the timeframe about this three actions. According to my understanding, intermittent showers fell first, and then there were some results, and finally, there was a official announcement. All there three actions happened in the past.
Normally when we decided whether to use the past perfect, we just compare the time sequence of two actions that happened in the past. If action B happened before action A, then we for action B, we use the past perfect contruction, and for action A, we use the simple past construction. however, in this sentence, there are three actions( Action A, Action B, Action C,from the lastest to the oldest) happened in the past, how can we identify the right tense for the action B ?
Looking forwards your reply
thanks
Jane

OA: No appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen the day before.
Marty and I have explained the justification for had resulted.
While had resulted and had fallen are both in the past perfect tense, the modifier in red makes it clear that the showers fell BEFORE no increase resulted.

Janewq wrote:Hi Marty Murray
Thanks for your explanation, but I still a little confused.
In this sentence, there are three verbs,ie. announced,resulted,fell. In order to decide the right tense, we need to figure out the timeframe about this three actions. According to my understanding, intermittent showers fell first, and then there were some results, and finally, there was a official announcement. All there three actions happened in the past.
Normally when we decided whether to use the past perfect, we just compare the time sequence of two actions that happened in the past. If action B happened before action A, then we for action B, we use the past perfect contruction, and for action A, we use the simple past construction. however, in this sentence, there are three actions( Action A, Action B, Action C,from the lastest to the oldest) happened in the past, how can we identify the right tense for the action B ?
Looking forwards your reply
thanks
Jane

So to add to what Mitch said, I guess we have a choice. Do we use the simple past or the past perfect for Action B? In this case, both the showers fell, Action C, and no appreciable increase resulted, Action B, before Government officials announced, Action A. Furthermore, Action A was precipitated by Action B and Action C. So the best call in this case is to use the past perfect for both Action B and Action C, and then, as Mitch noted, use a modifier, and meaning actually, to further clarify the timeline.

Another way to look at all this is to realize that while, yes, maybe there are some rules involved, effective sentence construction is largely based on doing what makes sense. What this can come down to in GMAT SC is what I have experienced, scenarios in which people with whom I am working teach me cool rules, and meanwhile without knowing all the rules they know, I get the SC questions right pretty much 100 percent of the time while the person teaching me the rules may have a hit rate of around 50 percent.

So be careful about being too focused on or caught up in rules.

In considering the question being discussed here, we can see that the way tenses are used in the OA version of the sentence just makes sense.

Another way to look at all this is to realize that while, yes, maybe there are some rules involved, effective sentence construction is largely based on doing what makes sense. What this can come down to in GMAT SC is what I have experienced, scenarios in which people with whom I am working teach me cool rules, and meanwhile without knowing all the rules they know, I get the SC questions right pretty much 100 percent of the time while the person teaching me the rules may have a hit rate of around 50 percent.

So be careful about being too focused on or caught up in rules.

In considering the question being discussed here, we can see that the way tenses are used in the OA version of the sentence just makes sense.

golden words there. I guess this is the whole point of SC. SC is fun!

kutlee wrote:I guess this is the whole point of SC. SC is fun!

INDEED kutlee. The GMAT, like the rest of life, is pretty much one big game. Play on!

Hi Marty/Mitch,
Got couple of questions for complete understanding -

1. I guess, many times in GMAT, the part of any Sentence after BECAUSE (when the SC is in PAST TENSE mood) comes with SIMPLE PAST rather than PAST PERFECT.
So, what's the BASIC takeaway in such cases -- I mean, when the portion after BECAUSE should have PAST PERFECT and when just SIMPLE PAST tense ?

2. We've here three ACTIONS - all in PAST. From the OA it appears that the timeline sequence is as below:

1st action: showers had fallen (PAST PERFECT) ; 2nd action: no appreciable increase had resulted (PAST PERFECT) ; 3rd action: officials announced (SIMPLE PAST).

But we know that between TWO PAST events, the former event takes PAST PERFECT,whereas the latter event takes SIMPLE PAST. Now we've three DIFFERENT past events in the above order -- so how this rule will be applied here (1st occurs before 2nd and the 2nd before 3rd) ?

@Verbal Experts - can any of you please share your thoughts on my above doubts ?

Look forward to your clarifications. Much thanks in advance!

hi experts,
have a quick question to be clarified.

on GMAT, sometimes we see that in a causal statement, the portion following "because" or "since" uses past perfect;
whereas in some official sc,the portion following "because" or "since" uses simple past,even if the other event is in simple past as well. (although I can't show you any examples at present)

so, my doubt is how to understand this aspect -- when to use past perfect and when to use simple past after "because" or "since" on GMAT ?

Marty Murray wrote:Often the optimal way to handle talking about events that happened in the past is to use the simple past when talking about the more recent event and the past perfect for talking about an event that occurred earlier than the other one did.

Marty Murray wrote: Do we use the simple past or the past perfect for Action B? In this case, both the showers fell, Action C, and no appreciable increase resulted, Action B, before Government officials announced, Action A. Furthermore, Action A was precipitated by Action B and Action C. So the best call in this case is to use the past perfect for both Action B and Action C, and then, as Mitch noted, use a modifier, and meaning actually, to further clarify the timeline.

hi marty,
so from your above two quotes, I think we can infer that in GMAT, "representing sequence of events on a timeline", the use of past perfect & simple past is NOT limited to two past events -- it can be extended to more than two events all happening in the past.

am I correct ?

ngk4mba3236 wrote:

Marty Murray wrote:Often the optimal way to handle talking about events that happened in the past is to use the simple past when talking about the more recent event and the past perfect for talking about an event that occurred earlier than the other one did.

Marty Murray wrote: Do we use the simple past or the past perfect for Action B? In this case, both the showers fell, Action C, and no appreciable increase resulted, Action B, before Government officials announced, Action A. Furthermore, Action A was precipitated by Action B and Action C. So the best call in this case is to use the past perfect for both Action B and Action C, and then, as Mitch noted, use a modifier, and meaning actually, to further clarify the timeline.

hi marty,
so from your above two quotes, I think we can infer that in GMAT, "representing sequence of events on a timeline", the use of past perfect & simple past is NOT limited to two past events -- it can be extended to more than two events all happening in the past.

am I correct ?

That is correct.

ngk4mba3236 wrote:hi experts,
have a quick question to be clarified.

on GMAT, sometimes we see that in a causal statement, the portion following "because" or "since" uses past perfect;
whereas in some official sc,the portion following "because" or "since" uses simple past,even if the other event is in simple past as well. (although I can't show you any examples at present)

so, my doubt is how to understand this aspect -- when to use past perfect and when to use simple past after "because" or "since" on GMAT ?

Logic dictates whether to use simple past or past perfect.

Check out this example.

Before he went to the show, Jim repaired his bike chain.

Notice that Jim did two things, one before the other. First he repaired the chain, and second he went to the show. So why isn't repaired in the past perfect form? Because Before already indicates that Jim repaired first. Look at the sentence with had repaired instead of repaired.

Before he went to the show, Jim had repaired his bike chain.

The past perfect indicates that when one even happened the first had already happened. So that version basically conveys that before before - yes two befores - he went to the show, Jim repaired the chain.

Now let's consider your question.

Past Perfect with Simple Past: Because his bike tire had been punctured, Jim walked to the show.

First the tire was punctured and next Jim walked to the show. So the past perfect and the simple past make sense.

Simple Past with Simple Past: Because his tire was flat, Jim walked to the show.

In that sentence the tire was flat simultaneously with Jim walking to the show. So using the simple past for both makes sense.

So logic dictates which to use.

Here's another one.

Because Aisha drove carefully, we made it safely through the storm.

Both Aisha driving and making it safely happened at the same time. So using simple past and simple past makes sense.

Here's a final example.

Because storm had been so violent, we decided to inspect the car for damage.

First the storm was violent and then we decided. So using past perfect and simple past makes sense.

Hey, sometimes sentence construction actually makes sense.

marty,
I guess, I got your point - though NOT completely. also, it'd be better if you could quickly enlighten this aspect with reference to a few GMAT sc qs.

so, basically you're saying that for causal statements using "because" or "since", GMAT uses past perfect - ONLY when there is a clear indication of one event happened earlier than other/s and this is true in the case of either two past events or multiple past events.

am I correct ?