Sentence Correction

i picked C. i did a search, they keep point out that "would have" is not the right tense, but i still dont see why, can someone shed some light on this? thanks.

340. If anyone at InterCom Financial Advisers would have anticipated, or even suspected, the impending sale of the Koniko kelp processing plant, they would have advised owners of Koniko stock to unload all shares immediately.
(A) If anyone at InterCom Financial Advisers would have anticipated
(B) Had anyone at InterCom Financial Advisers anticipated
(C) If any people at InterCom Financial Advisers would have anticipated
(D) If any people at InterCom Financial Advisers had anticipated
(E) If anybody at InterCom Financial Advisers anticipated

OA d

whoa

I am very uncomfortable with "if any people"

that just sounds wrong

would have sounds incorrect. Consider this simple sentence - If Ann would have worked hard, she would have got good marks. Also, suspected is in a different form. Suspection and Anticipation event happens first and then the second part. I would have gone with B.


Any people sounds incorrect. But there is a "they" in the second part of the sentence, so D makes sense. It does not "SOUND" correct.

If I had encountered this question in the test, I would have definitely gone wrong.

Very good question. I would have gone wrong in the real exam. I initially chose B as my answer, but when I looked at the OA, I realised that 'anyone' is singular & the pronoun 'they' in the later part of the sentence is plural. So, A,B & E are out. Between C & D, the usage of 'would have' is C is not correct. So, the correct answer should be D.

Thank you for posting this question. I will now be wary when I see 'any people' in SC.

Past perfect is used when two events happened in the past.

Eg: event(I) happened first and then Event(II) so we will use
Had + past participle for (I) and Simple past for (II)

Eg: several teachers thought(Event II) that JIm had cheated(event I) in the exam

Event(I)
If anyone at InterCom Financial Advisers would have anticipated, or even suspected, the impending sale of the Koniko kelp processing plant
wrong. need had+ past participle

Event(II)
they would have advised owners of Koniko stock to unload all shares immediately.

It's a past Unreal conditional(talks about something that did not happen in the past) .

The rules is as follows:

If (condition in past perfect), (then->implied) (result clause is in present perfect)

Result Clause:
they would have advised (present perfect)

Condition must be in past perfect:

had+ V3(past participle)

had anticipated


Hence D

@cramya,

One question here.
I read in SC guide that 'If' is used in GMAT only as
'If...then..'

Going by that logic, such Q's where 'then' is assumed are GMAT like or not?