Sentence Correction

Once they had seen the report from the medical examiner, the investigators did not doubt whether the body recovered from the river was the man who had attempted to escape from the state prison.

(A) did not doubt whether the body recovered from the river was
(B) have no doubt whether the body recovered from the river was
(C) had not doubted that the body recovered from the river was
(D) have no doubt whether the body recoveredfrom the river was that of
(E) had no doubt that the body recovered from the river was that of

[spoiler]Its an easy question if we find that "the body is that of the man". OA is E. My question is, OG says THAT should replace WHETHER. Whats wrong with WHETHER? [/spoiler]

IMO E

Thanks for your opinion deepak. But I need explanation on why you avoided all other answer choice and chose E. I already know what is OA.

In the negative context doubt is always followed by that thus here we are left only with choices (C) and (E). Body could not be the man, it could be of the man, hence (C) is out and (E) wins.

Hi Umaa,

An answer to you question is --- > Whether is used when we have two cases contrasting each other.

Here, there is just a single idea in the second part of the sentence "that the body recovered from the river was that of the man who had attempted to escape from the state prison. "

If the sentence would have been "whether the body recovered from the river was that of the man who had attempted to escape from the state prison or that of any other person"

then we would have used "whether" here.

Hope you understand!!

hrishi19884 wrote:Hi Umaa,

An answer to you question is --- > Whether is used when we have two cases contrasting each other.

Here, there is just a single idea in the second part of the sentence "that the body recovered from the river was that of the man who had attempted to escape from the state prison. "

If the sentence would have been "whether the body recovered from the river was that of the man who had attempted to escape from the state prison or that of any other person"

then we would have used "whether" here.

Hope you understand!!

I agree...

or that of any other person" - Don't you think its implied in the sentence. I still feel that WHETHER makes sense.

umaa wrote:or that of any other person" - Don't you think its implied in the sentence. I still feel that WHETHER makes sense.

No, you can't assume anything here , if "or that of any other person" would have been mentioned in the sentence, then would have been a different scenario.

Why not D.

if we change whether to that in D , then also what is the difference between have and had here.

As per OG

As it is used in the opening clause, the past perfect verb tense indicates that an action in the past was completed before another action in the past: Once x had happened, then y happened. To maintain proper verb sequence, the verb in the
main clause must therefore be in the simple past tense.

But had is not simple past tense right ?

Please advice