Hi rakeshd347,

This SC has an odd style to it, but I think I know what the author's "intent" was.

The Sentence Corrections that appear on the GMAT are built on an established set of rules that you WILL see in some form on Test Day.

One of those rules is this specific verb rule (which I'll put into real basic terms): If you see two "past events" in a sentence, then you should use the verb "had."

Here, the acreage that was "destroyed" (past tense) was twice as much as.... that "combined" (another past tense). Since we have two past tense events, we should use the word "had"

This points to answer D

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

rakeshd347 wrote:Some historians estimate that in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, twice as much acreage was destroyed than had earlier been ravaged in Napoleon's Moscow burnings of 1812 and the Great Fire of London of 1666 combined.

than had earlier been
than the amount that was earlier
over the amount that was previously
as had earlier been
as was

Source Kaplan Tests.

OA D

My confusion is between D and E. Even though in D the dates are clearly mentioned so we don't need had been here. Obviously 1871 came after 1812 so why do we need to show the sequence of time. This is my understanding. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I'm happy to share my two cents.

First of all, here's a blog article on the idioms of comparison:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idioms-of-comparison/

One concept this questions tests is the difference between two correct forms
(a) [comparative] than
(b) as [adjective] as
and the very frequent mistake pattern
(c) as .. than
The GMAT LOVES to test this one. I like this part of the question. Clearly, on this basis, we can eliminate (A) & (B) & (C).

That gets us down to (D) & (E), which has only a split about verb tense. In this respect, I don't think this is the best question, because this split is highly debatable. The question creators have decreed that (D) is the OA, but don't fall into the trap of automatically assuming that the question creators have divine status. Regardless of the test prep company, test-prep-company-right is not the same league as official-material-right. You are correct ---- there definitely are instances in the OG in which the OA will avoid the past perfect if other indications of time sequence are present in the sentence. I have noticed, in a situation such as this, the OG never will leave us with just a bare comparison of two verb tenses, and nothing else. If they want to indicate the choice of one verb tense over another, they always have other issues brewing among the answer choices, so that the verb tense is inevitable. The trouble with this split ---as this sentence stands, there's a strong argument for (D) and a strong argument for (E), and both sides could find evidence in the OG.

Here's a blog about the perfect tenses:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-verb- ... ct-tenses/

Does all this make sense?
Mike