Sentence Correction

Before the Civil War, Harriet Tubman, along with other former slaves and white abolitionists,
helped create what had become known as the Underground Railroad, and were responsible for
leading hundreds, if not thousands, of slaves to freedom.
"¢ had become known as the Underground Railroad, and were
"¢ would become known as the Underground Railroad, and were
"¢ had become known as the Underground Railroad, and was
"¢ has been becoming known as the Underground Railroad, and was
"¢ would become known as the Underground Railroad, and was



b/e??

B is incorrect
would become known as the Underground Railroad, and were

were can't be used for Harriet and along with doesn't make plural compound noun

Answer should be E

some where in master gmat i learned that WOULD + if = always use WERE not was ??

the right answer should be E why?
this question is about relative time..one thing happened first and that was "she created railroad" and then "it became known as"...this isnt CONDITIONAL SENTENCE that requires "If then" clause. the real thing happened. harriet tubman, along with other former slaves..." should be followed by singular verb...so "were" is out in this case. Would is needed because an action happened after the main action and completed before present time.

Bit confused b/w C and E.
X along with Y-->followed by singular verb therefore "were" cannot be used..
Eliminate A,B and D
IMO answer should be C since "had" is used to express that something has happened before a certain event (different time periods in the past).

Mohit - good question. Here's the thing with that sequence of events, though: "helped create" is already fixed in simple past, outside the underline. To assign "had" to "become known", you're then saying that the "become known as the Underground Railroad" event happened *before* she helped create it.

Which is backward and illogical - something couldn't become known before it was created, so C uses the past-perfect backward and illogically. Therefore it has to be E.

One other thought on this - this is a classic candidate for what we at Veritas Prep call "Slash and Burn", eliminating modifiers and descriptions to thin out the sentence. If you eliminate the modifiers (set off by commas) "Before the Civil War" and "along with other...", the subject/verb agreement becomes pretty clear:

Harriet Tubman helped create...and was responsible.

mohit_1607 wrote:Bit confused b/w C and E.
X along with Y-->followed by singular verb therefore "were" cannot be used..
Eliminate A,B and D

A minor thing perhaps. D actually uses was correctly, but obviously D has issues with incorrect tense usage.

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Mohit - good question. Here's the thing with that sequence of events, though: "helped create" is already fixed in simple past, outside the underline. To assign "had" to "become known", you're then saying that the "become known as the Underground Railroad" event happened *before* she helped create it.

Which is backward and illogical - something couldn't become known before it was created, so C uses the past-perfect backward and illogically. Therefore it has to be E.

One other thought on this - this is a classic candidate for what we at Veritas Prep call "Slash and Burn", eliminating modifiers and descriptions to thin out the sentence. If you eliminate the modifiers (set off by commas) "Before the Civil War" and "along with other...", the subject/verb agreement becomes pretty clear:

Harriet Tubman helped create...and was responsible.

Thanks Brian for the explanation

EducationAisle wrote:

mohit_1607 wrote:Bit confused b/w C and E.
X along with Y-->followed by singular verb therefore "were" cannot be used..
Eliminate A,B and D

A minor thing perhaps. D actually uses was correctly, but obviously D has issues with incorrect tense usage.

Thanks for the correction Ashish..