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Why is there no tense error here ?

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by rohit_gmat » Fri Nov 19, 2010 8:42 am
Dear All,

Please help explain why we dont have a tense error here :

"After the president of the college publicly lamented the sharp drop in the value of its endowment, the head of faculty suggested that they initiate a fundraising campaign immediately. "

Is corrected by :
" After the president of the college publicly lamented the sharp drop in the value of its endowment, the head of faculty suggested that the college initiate a fundraising campaign immediately. "

I understand the pronoun error. But why isn't there any tense error ?

Shouldn't it be :
" After the president of the college had publicly lamented the sharp drop in the value of its endowment, the head of faculty suggested that the college initiate a fundraising campaign immediately. "

Thanks in advance![/u]
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by uwhusky » Fri Nov 19, 2010 8:49 am
Past perfect is not necessary because we already know the sequence of events by the adverb of "after..."
Yep.
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by Isaac@EconomistGMAT » Fri Nov 19, 2010 1:34 pm
Yes it can be explained in that way (that we know the sequence of events) but really this sentence should have the Past Perfect as the word 'after' is a good indicator that the Past Perfect should be used (although generally the word 'after' is not necessary nor is it the only such time clue that can be used of course).

In spoken English especially, we do not always use time markers and so we can use the Past Perfect through context. The rules are different for written English, especially when you only have 1 sentence and no context.

So normally, you would see the Past Perfect there (Good catch) but it can be explained as only the Past simple being necessary.
Isaac Bettan
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Master GMAT
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by kashefian » Sat Nov 20, 2010 12:37 pm
I believe because of the "after" the past perfect is unnecessary. However, I do not understand why the pronoun "its" is not replaced with some correct version? It seems it refers to 'College' but the college itself is not presented in the sentence.
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by rohit_gmat » Sun Nov 21, 2010 6:11 am
kashefian wrote:I believe because of the "after" the past perfect is unnecessary. However, I do not understand why the pronoun "its" is not replaced with some correct version? It seems it refers to 'College' but the college itself is not presented in the sentence.
Yes you are right... please note the corrected sentence stated below (in my first post) which replaces 'its' with 'the college' ...
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