Sentence Correction

The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime had been sold at an illegal gun show.

A. The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime had been
B. The police at the scene of last week's crime confiscated the guns that have been
C. The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime have been
D. The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime were
E. Last week the guns that had been confiscated by police in the crime week had been

IMO A.
We need to show the sequence of events-guns were sold earilier than the last week's event.So we need to use past perfect rather than present perfect ( have been) ,which makes it mean that guns are still being sold.

RyanDark wrote:IMO A.
We need to show the sequence of events-guns were sold earilier than the last week's event.So we need to use past perfect rather than present perfect ( have been) ,which makes it mean that guns are still being sold.

Thats what I thought, but thats not the correct answer.

Hey dude howz the prep going? You hanging in there?

Is D missing 'sold' in the end? if yes, I'd go for D. If not, then I'd stick with A.

beatthegmatinsept wrote:Hey dude howz the prep going? You hanging in there?

Is D missing 'sold' in the end? if yes, I'd go for D. If not, then I'd stick with A.

heyyyy!! prep is going alright, test is in 2 weeks. Lets see . How are you and your prep?

I have fixed the mistake in the question, I underlined sold in it when it wasn't supposed to be underlined.

Yes. OA: (D)

Can you explain please!

Thanks,

The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime had been sold at an illegal gun show.


Usage of 'had been' is redundant, since the above red highlighted parts already tell you the timing of events.

It is confusing though, cuz without the use of 'had been' you might think that the guns were sold illegally AFTER the police confiscated them, but that won't make any sense. So the guns must have been sold illegally BEFORE the police confiscated them.

Prep is going.. not as good as I wanted it to be, but hopefully I'll get there

hi,
i dont think < A> is wrong as long as meaning is clear

You are right.

D is right answer. When time sequence is already mentioned that we dont require past prefect tense.

I know another rule.

Since before and after clearly tells us which is more past, we need not use "had" before "before" and after "after".

The patient died after the doctor had come.

--> Doctor came first.
---> The patient died.

The patient had died before the doctor came.

--> The patient died first.
---> Then the doctor came.

Here, we have seen that the action before "before" and after "after" is more past. If we can assume which action is more past, we need NOT use HAD.

The same deal here. if we know the sequence of events, we are not required to use had to mean more past.

if D is right then does this sentence means that
guns were confiscated and then police sold it in a market ---those guns....?

Not sure what to tell you all -- I'm looking at this question in the database right now and we have Choice A marked as the correct answer, for the reasons you all have mentioned.

While it IS true that in real English you don't need the past perfect tense in cases where the time sequence is made clear by specifying adverbs and prepositional phrases, this question is based on #37 in the purple OG Verbal review (1st edition), which also has a specific time marker . . . in that one, the GMAT still prefers the past perfect tense for action prior to another one in the simple past.

I don't know why it came up D; it's not what's in the database, and in any case the OG has spoken definitively on the subject. Sorry for the confusion!

Jim@Grockit wrote:Not sure what to tell you all -- I'm looking at this question in the database right now and we have Choice A marked as the correct answer, for the reasons you all have mentioned.

While it IS true that in real English you don't need the past perfect tense in cases where the time sequence is made clear by specifying adverbs and prepositional phrases, this question is based on #37 in the purple OG Verbal review (1st edition), which also has a specific time marker . . . in that one, the GMAT still prefers the past perfect tense for action prior to another one in the simple past.

I don't know why it came up D; it's not what's in the database, and in any case the OG has spoken definitively on the subject. Sorry for the confusion!

Hmmm.... no wonder why there was alot of confusion.

Maybe my Internet Browser is messed up. It has been acting weird lately!

frank1 wrote:if D is right then does this sentence means that
guns were confiscated and then police sold it in a market ---those guns....?

Exactly. not using had been obviously changes the meaning. Then it can also mean that the police sold them later. It must be A.

gmat_perfect@

so which one is better :

(A) The patient died after the doctor had come.
or
(B) The patient died after the doctor came.


(A) The patient had died before the doctor came.
or
(B) The patient died before the doctor came.

Genarally I have seen the people using construction A.

paes wrote:gmat_perfect@

so which one is better :

(A) The patient died after the doctor had come.
or
(B) The patient died after the doctor came.


(A) The patient had died before the doctor came.
or
(B) The patient died before the doctor came.

Genarally I have seen the people using construction A.

Words like "before" and "after" make the chronology impossible to confuse -- you are safe with either, and I would be shocked and dismayed if the GMAT came down on one side or the other in an SC question with no other errors. There is a small difference in connotation, though -- though the meaning is the same, the past perfect suggests a larger gap in time between the two events.