Sentence Correction

winnie --

winniethepooh wrote:My query: If a sentence contains a word that describes that an action occurred prior to another action then why is it necessary to use the to be verb in past perfect tense.

In this question my query relates to the correct answer, which is D. In this option can't we simply say "Segovia led the twentieth-century revival of the classical guitar, which was not previously considered prestigious enough to be" instead of using the option in the question?

i see what you're doing here, but, if you introspect for a second, you'll realize that the real motivation behind this question is, almost certainly, an (understandable) sense of frustration at the past perfect tense. in other words, i think you understand the answer to the question already, but you are, at least subconsciously, looking for ways to circumvent the use of that tense (which is admittedly very annoying, for non-native and native speakers alike).

here's what i mean:
let's ask exactly the same question about a different pair of tenses.
how about this: for eight years, from 1999 to 2007, i taught high school.
in the same manner as your question above, you could ask: if you say "from 1999 to 2007", why do you still have to use the past tense? why can't you just write "from 1999 to 2007, i teach high school"?

i think you see where i'm going with this, but the only way to answer your question is to say, essentially, that verb tenses are what they are regardless of the adverbs and modifiers that surround them.
the above is a sentence in which the past perfect is most appropriate, because you're describing a circumstance that persisted exactly up to the timeframe described in the sentence (the timeframe from whose point of view the sentence is written) and then stopped. so -- even if you throw in extra adverbs -- it's still a sentence in which the past perfect is most appropriate.

i get why this can be frustrating, but it's certainly better than the alternative (= a situation in which the use of verb tenses changed according to things like adverbs)!

you're welcome.

winniethepooh wrote:Hi, Ron. I have a question regarding this SC from Kaplan CAT.
The correct answer as indicated does not contain a past perfect tense for the previous action i.e.,'Because the percentage of 12- to 17 year- olds who reported using marijuana within the last month increased some 4 percent from 1990 to 1995'.
Shouldn't the option be, 'Because the percentage of 12- to 17 year- olds who had reported using marijuana within the last month increased some 4 percent from 1990 to 1995'?

in that context, the regular past tense "reported" makes more sense, because the reports are in the same timeframe as the rest of what's described in the sentence. in other words, the study described people who reported having done something in the last month -- but the study reported that statistic over a period of years, implying the collection of new monthly reports throughout the course of the study. therefore, the sentence is comparing the number of teenagers who reported this drug use in 1990 -- in a survey conducted in 1990 -- with the number of teenagers who reported it in 1995, in a survey actually conducted in that year. this is the same timeframe as the actual action of the sentence, so the regular past tense is fine.
if this sentence were to describe some remote event, completed prior to the study, but reported during the study, then you could use the past perfect. e.g.,
the percentage of business school students who had already achieved another graduate degree doubled between 1980 and 1990.
--> here, these students had already completed the other graduate degree (= finished action) at some indefinite time prior to the study; this does NOT describe something happening in the same timeframe.

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at the end of the day, don't forget that verb tense is a minor topic on this exam: (a) it's not tested very frequently in the first place, and (b) the official problems almost always test it in conjunction with other, more major topics (e.g., parallelism, modifier placement, etc.).
so, while it's certainly worth learning these ideas, you shouldn't give them undue prominence in your study plan.