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Same tense maintaining_parralelism

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Same tense maintaining_parralelism

by Soumita » Mon Jan 21, 2013 7:10 pm
A historian attempting to predict in the 1870's which nation would take over world leadership from the British probably would have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and been quite wrong.

(A) have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and been
(B) have guessed that it would have been Bismarck's Prussia and he would be
(C) have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and would be
(D) guess Bismarck's Prussia and be
(E) guess that it would be Bismarck's Prussia and would have been

OA A


I pick D as correct. As per my knowledge we need to maintain same tense when we are joining two sentences with And.In this choice same tense have been maintained "would guess" ( indicating the action that might takes place) and "would be" (indicating the action that might takes place).

I eliminate choice A. As in this choice same tense is not maintained. " would have guessed" and "Would have been" is not the same tense. Would have guessed ( indicating the action that might have taken place in the past) where as Would have been (indicating the action that might have taken place in the past and is continuing)

Kindly correct me if I am wrong in my understanding.
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:15 am
This sentence is in the past tense - the 1870s to be exact. D and E have 'guess' in the present tense and are incorrect.

B and C has 'would be', which is in the present tense.

A is correct, because both would have guessed and would have been are in the past - your understanding was wrong because these are in the same tense.
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by nash.8087 » Tue Jan 22, 2013 8:19 am
Jim@StratusPrep wrote:This sentence is in the past tense - the 1870s to be exact. D and E have 'guess' in the present tense and are incorrect.

B and C has 'would be', which is in the present tense.

A is correct, because both would have guessed and would have been are in the past - your understanding was wrong because these are in the same tense.
Hi Jim,
"have guessed" and "have been wrong" are present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses, right? I am not sure why did you call them as same tense. Sorry for posing a silly question.
Is there any other criteria that you have used to shortlist A as the final option?
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