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by dreamv » Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:59 pm
San Franciscans of the 1890s mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within twenty years a powerful municipality had made this boast a reality.

A. yet within twenty years a powerful municipality had made this boast a reality.
B. yet within twenty years a powerful municipality made this boast a reality.
C. yet a powerful municipality within twenty years will make this boast a reality.
D. yet this boast had become a reality within twenty years because of a powerful will municipally.
E. yet within twenty years a municipality will had made this baost a powerful reality.
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by vikram4689 » Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:51 pm
IMO C

A. yet within twenty years a powerful municipality had made this boast a reality.
B. yet within twenty years a powerful municipality made this boast a reality.
C. yet a powerful municipality within twenty years will make this boast a reality.
D. yet this boast had become a reality within twenty years because of a powerful will municipally.
E. yet within twenty years a municipality will had made this baost a powerful reality.
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by vikram4689 » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:11 pm
i saw there is some confusion regarding this question and some say that correct question is below and OA is A. I have sent a PM to RON to share his views

San Franciscans of the 1890's mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
1. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
2. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will made this boast a reality.
3. yet a powerful municipal within 20 years will make this boast a reality.
4. yet this boast had become a reality within 20 years because of a powerful will municipally
5. yet within 20 years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality.
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by patanjali.purpose » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:27 pm
dreamv wrote:San Franciscans of the 1890s mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within twenty years a powerful municipality had made this boast a reality.
A. yet within twenty years a powerful municipality had made this boast a reality.
HAD MADE...we requires tense that can show a time frame after MOCKED ie either present perfect or simple past will serve the purpose)

B. yet within twenty years a powerful municipality made this boast a reality.

C. yet a powerful municipality within twenty years will make this boast a reality.
(WILL MAKE...we requires tense that can show a time frame after MOCKED (ie either present perfect or simple past will serve the purpose)

D. yet this boast had become a reality within twenty years because of a powerful will municipally.
(HAD BECOME...we requires tense that can show a time frame after MOCKED (ie either present perfect or simple past will serve the purpose). Sentence is illogical. Use of BECAUSE makes it more awkward...we need one sensible connector between 2 independent clauses)

E. yet within twenty years a municipality will had made this baost a powerful reality.
(HAD MADE...we requires tense that can show a time frame after MOCKED ie either present perfect or simple past will serve the purpose)

IMO B

IMO 'PAST PERFECT' is not required because the time frame of 2nd independent clause (IC) happened after 1st IC. Past perfect could be correct in some cases, eg: Within the next 20 yrs, a powerful mucipiality had made the claim a reality (note here there is no other indicator to indicate the sequencing of tense 'HAD MADE' other than WITHIN THE NEXT 20 YEARS)
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by dreamv » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:38 pm
OA is A. I still don't understand why it needs perfect past tense. I thought it needed simple past tense or future tense because "yet" is in the front of the sentence. What does "Yet" mean here? Could anybody help to explain?
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by avik.ch » Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:55 pm
Within 10 years after my retirement, I had finished all my savings. - it means that I expected my savings to last for 10 years, but finished before that.

Within 10 years after my retirement, I finished all my savings. - The "expectation" doesnt comes here.

So here,

1890 ---- > mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city

Within this period (20 years)---the work by the municipality is over,

1910 ----> it was planned to be completed - but got completed before that.

The last two action is incorporated in the second clause.

But my question is, how to understand the difference between A and B - in a sentence like this. What the author is trying to convey ?

There is another version of this same question : "will had" in A. I am not quiet sure of this form - never heard of it.The past form of "will have" is "would have" ------- I dont know what is "will had"? As the past form of "may have" is "might have" and not "may had" - always the first word of the verb takes the tense form - then rest remains in its base form.

How can there are so may versions available for the same question ?
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by dreamv » Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:46 am
Thank you for your example about retirement saving. Now I understand why the past perfect tense is required.
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by KapTeacherEli » Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:18 am
Hi, avik.ch asked me to respond to this in PM, so here I am!

The "had" tense is used to indicate and action that was ongoing or that was completed in the past, BEFORE another action in the past began.

So it looks like this in a time line

(Past) Had been ___________ Was ______________ Is ____________ Will Be (Future)

The specific usage here is idiomatic and doesn't strictly follow this rules, but if you paraphrase "within 20 years" as "before the passage of 20 years," it becomes clear.

(Past) Had made this boast reality _______________Twenty years passed _________________Today __________Tomorrow (Future)


Finally, there was a lot of confusion over earlier versions of this problem because is said that 'a powerful municipal will had made....' and of course, 'will had' is not a tense that would ever be correct. But the actual reading of the original sentence was that 'will' was a noun, meaning 'desire' or 'drive'; it was using the exact same 'had made' tense as the version here.

I hope this clears up any confusion--let me know if I can answer any other questions!
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by Sharma_Gaurav » Sat Jan 28, 2012 10:39 am
what is the source of this question? please explain.
inclusion of yet makes me always think that second part of sentence happened later than the first part. so this "had" in second part is still unclear to me.

Please throw some more light.
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by Sharma_Gaurav » Sat Jan 28, 2012 10:45 am
Eli Meyer, can you please again explain this question.
option A cannot be the OA.
sentence meaning utterly confusing when you say - " first this boast made this reality" ( LA a world city , then 20 years passed , and then San Franciscans ridiculed this ( why will people redicule this , if the boast was already a reality 20 years before ).
only option makes sense is option C - meaning wise. ( edited ).
Sorry for the confusion as I mistyped my earlier post.

----------------------------------------------------------
I will again try to explain, how does option A makes sense meaning wise ? The correct intented meaning here should be - "First the Sanfransican people mocked the boast ( that it is a world class ) and then later "this boast was made into reality" . So how come this later part happened before the first part ? So "had" should not be present in the later part in my views . Please elaborate?



Please explain if i am missing something?
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by KapTeacherEli » Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:50 am
Hi Sharma,

I'm happy to help, but I'm not quite sure what your asking--in your last post, you say that A can't be the OA but then say that A is the only answer that makes sense. Can you clear up what is confusing you? I'll happily respond once I know how!

Thanks!

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by dreamv » Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:10 pm
Source is Kaplan CAT. Pls refer to Kaplan's explanation. As the explanation was not enough, I posted it here.

"Answer Choice (A) correctly uses the past perfect "had made" as required because there are two past actions, one ending before the other. We use the past perfect for the action that happened first - making the boast a reality."

Hope it helps.
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by vikram4689 » Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:54 am
Hi,
Few queries, this question was a bouncer :)

1) How "within 20 years" = "before the passage of 20 years,", dont they have different meanings
2) Earlier action : mocked the claim
Later actions : Municipality made this claim into reality

Why "had" is with later action

3) How "will" shows desire here, in that shouldn't it have been "Municipality's will"
4) I could not understand - Within 10 years after my retirement, I had finished all my savings. - it means that I expected my savings to last for 10 years, but finished before that. Is it an english rule

KapTeacherEli wrote:Hi, avik.ch asked me to respond to this in PM, so here I am!

The "had" tense is used to indicate and action that was ongoing or that was completed in the past, BEFORE another action in the past began.

So it looks like this in a time line

(Past) Had been ___________ Was ______________ Is ____________ Will Be (Future)

The specific usage here is idiomatic and doesn't strictly follow this rules, but if you paraphrase "within 20 years" as "before the passage of 20 years," it becomes clear.

(Past) Had made this boast reality _______________Twenty years passed _________________Today __________Tomorrow (Future)


Finally, there was a lot of confusion over earlier versions of this problem because is said that 'a powerful municipal will had made....' and of course, 'will had' is not a tense that would ever be correct. But the actual reading of the original sentence was that 'will' was a noun, meaning 'desire' or 'drive'; it was using the exact same 'had made' tense as the version here.

I hope this clears up any confusion--let me know if I can answer any other questions!
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by avik.ch » Sun Jan 29, 2012 1:08 am
KapTeacherEli wrote:
The specific usage here is idiomatic and doesn't strictly follow this rules, but if you paraphrase "within 20 years" as "before the passage of 20 years," it becomes clear.

(Past) Had made this boast reality _______________Twenty years passed _________________Today __________Tomorrow (Future)

Can you please throw some more light on this usage - with example.
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by KapTeacherEli » Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:23 pm
vikram4689 wrote:Hi,
Few queries, this question was a bouncer :)

1) How "within 20 years" = "before the passage of 20 years,", dont they have different meanings
Actually, no--they both mean "X happens, then the 20th year passes." The phrasing is different, and they have slightly different connotations, but the literal meanings of those statements is identical!
2) Earlier action : mocked the claim
Later actions : Municipality made this claim into reality

Why "had" is with later action
Mocking the claim is part of a separate clause (subject-verb pair). You can tell by the the comma followed by the word yet. Because the two actions are in different clauses, the 'had been' tense does not have to apply to the actions 'mocked the claim'.
3) How "will" shows desire here, in that shouldn't it have been "Municipality's will"
The original sentence read, "Municipal will." Municipal is an adjective modifying the noun "will," and the noun "will" means "desire" or "drive."
4) I could not understand - Within 10 years after my retirement, I had finished all my savings. - it means that I expected my savings to last for 10 years, but finished before that. Is it an english rule
Not an English rule exactly. Conventionally, that sentence implies that you expected it to last ten year, but the literally meaning of your sentence is "by the time 10 years had passed, my savings had already run out" and nothing more.
Eli Meyer
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Cambridge, MA
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