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simple past and past perfect

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simple past and past perfect

by dhirajdas53 » Thu Apr 18, 2013 3:30 am
In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocking the tennis world and winning his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title, which he already won 4 times.

1. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocking the tennis world and winning his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title, which he already won 4 times.
2. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocked the tennis world, and won his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title, which he had already won 4 times.
3. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocked the tennis world, and he won his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title, which he had already won 4 times.
4. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocking the tennis world and winning his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open, which he had already won 4 times.
5. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, which shocked the tennis world and gave him his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open, which he had already won 4 times.


Please someone explain the use of Past Perfect and the simple past(whichever ever is correct) in the last part of the sentence.
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by srcc25anu » Thu Apr 18, 2013 4:08 am
It has to be between A and D. "shocking the tennis world" modifies the complete sentence before it "In 2008 Wimbledon Final, Nadal beat Federer in 5 sets" which is correct.

The structure of the sentence here is (as In understand): Nadal BEAT FedEx ..., SHOCKING <<.....>>> and WINNING <<...>>

IMO it should be simple past because of the use of "ALREADY" suggesting that french open wins for Nadal happened prior to his WImbledon win. We use past perfect to demarcate the sequence of events if not already clear by some other identifier word in the sentence like before / after / already etc.

What's the OA?
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by dhirajdas53 » Thu Apr 18, 2013 7:53 pm
Question from Veritas Question Bank

OA : D. Need explanation why to go for past perfect and not simple past.
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by Gowri@CrackVerbal » Fri Apr 19, 2013 1:13 am
dhirajdas53 wrote:In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocking the tennis world and winning his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title, which he already won 4 times.

1. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocking the tennis world and winning his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title, which he already won 4 times.
2. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocked the tennis world, and won his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title, which he had already won 4 times.
3. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocked the tennis world, and he won his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title, which he had already won 4 times.
4. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocking the tennis world and winning his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open, which he had already won 4 times.
5. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, which shocked the tennis world and gave him his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open, which he had already won 4 times.


Please someone explain the use of Past Perfect and the simple past(whichever ever is correct) in the last part of the sentence.
Dhiraj,
The simple past tense is used when we talk about 1 event that occurred in the past. However, when there are 2 or more past events, and you want to bring out the sequence or order in which they happened, you must use the past perfect tense.

In this question, there are 2 past events and this is the order in which they occurred:
1. Nadal won the French Open 4 times
2. In the 2008 Wimbledon final, he won the first Grand Slam tournament apart from the French Open

We want to show that until the 2008 Wimbledon, Nadal had not won any Grand Slams other than the French Open. i.e. we need to show the sequence is which these two events occurred. This is why we prefer the past perfect here.

Hope the difference is clear. :)
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by Ankur87 » Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:30 am
Yup,
Gowri is right.
Sequence matters.
Past perfect is the major difference between A and D, but there are other differences:
A: Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title : comparing tournament with Title
B: Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 5 sets, shocked : here "shocked" refers to the immediately preceding noun i.e. "sets".
C: same as B.
D: CORRECT : Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open ( TITLE ELIMINATED ) ( PAST PERFECT )
E: which refers to 5 sets.
dhirajdas53 wrote:Question from Veritas Question Bank

OA : D. Need explanation why to go for past perfect and not simple past.
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by veenu08 » Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:44 am
IMO we use 'had' when order of the events is not clear, but here its mentioned he already won 4 times. so shouldn't we use simple past instead of past perfect.

can someone please help me understand this.

Regards,
Veenu
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by Gowri@CrackVerbal » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:00 am
veenu08 wrote:IMO we use 'had' when order of the events is not clear, but here its mentioned he already won 4 times. so shouldn't we use simple past instead of past perfect.

can someone please help me understand this.

Regards,
Veenu
Veenu, the use of the word 'already' alone is no sufficient to clarify the event sequence. Think about everyday examples:

I had already left the office by the time my boss arrived. <correct>
I already left the office by the time my boss arrived. <incorrect>

:)
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by aaggar7 » Tue Apr 23, 2013 2:53 am
Hi Gowri,

Please explain what is incorrect in Option 2
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by Gowri@CrackVerbal » Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:15 am
aaggar7 wrote:Hi Gowri,

Please explain what is incorrect in Option 2
Try to understand the meaning that option B is conveying. It seems to imply that Nadal did 3 different things:
1. beat Roger Federer in 5 sets
2. shocked the tennis world
3. won his first Grand Slam tournament other than the French Open title

The problem is that Nadal is not doing 3 different things - it is because he beat Federer in 5 sets that he shocked the tennis world and won his first Grand Slam apart from the French Open.

'and' is a conjunction that is usually used to connect two distinct, separate ideas. In this case, the ideas are not separate - two are subsets of the first. Thus, the use of 'and' to connect them is inappropriate. Hope this is clear.
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