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

The guns had been sold in an illegal gun show (something that happened before the police confiscated them)

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 (this means that illegal guns are still being sold)
C. The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime have been (this means that illegal guns are still being sold)
D. The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime were ( should be past perfect tense)
E. Last week the guns that had been confiscated by police in the crime week had been (awkward construction)

OA please !

smackmartine wrote:IMO A

The guns had been sold in an illegal gun show (something that happened before the police confiscated them)

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 (this means that illegal guns are still being sold)
C. The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime have been (this means that illegal guns are still being sold)
D. The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime were ( should be past perfect tense)
E. Last week the guns that had been confiscated by police in the crime week had been (awkward construction)

IMO D

The confiscation and selling of gun are not related activity - confiscation did not stop the selling of guns (ie one activity does not affect the other activity in any way). Therefore IMO past perfect not required.

Let's discuss whether my reasoing is correct.

patanjali.purpose wrote: IMO D

The confiscation and selling of gun are not related activity - confiscation did not stop the selling of guns (ie one activity does not affect the other activity in any way). Therefore IMO past perfect not required.

Let's discuss whether my reasoing is correct.

Hi Patanjali,

Let's dissect D
The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime were sold at an illegal gun show.
The italicized part is a modifier that modifies guns and an essential part because it's described by "THAT" relative pronoun . This sentence means that the confiscated guns were sold at an illegal gun show. (Sounds weird to me because if guns were in the police custody, it does n't make sense that they were sold illegally.(if police is corrupt, a case which is very unlikely on GMAT, this sounds ok :). The order of event is not clearly stated in D. As we need to maintain the actual meaning of the sentence, A sounds better to me.))

+1 for A

looking for OA ! thanks!

smackmartine wrote:
Hi Patanjali,

Let's dissect D
The guns that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime were sold at an illegal gun show.
The italicized part is a modifier that modifies guns and an essential part because it's described by "THAT" relative pronoun . This sentence means that the confiscated guns were sold at an illegal gun show. (Sounds weird to me because if guns were in the police custody, it does n't make sense that they were sold illegally.(if police is corrupt, a case which is very unlikely on GMAT, this sounds ok . The order of event is not clearly stated in D.

Hi Smack,

The meaning can change if we read the sentence as: The guns were sold at an illegal gun show that were confiscated by police at the scene of last week's crime.

Since the THAT clause comes before main verb in the original sentence does not mean that the action in the THAT clause happens before the main verb. To me its obvious that guns were sold before they were confiscated and therefore prefer using the simplest form of tense. From that perspective, my view is different.

As we need to maintain the actual meaning of the sentence, A sounds better to me.))

However, I agree that since the original sentence used 'had been' its safer to keep prefer A, esp when there is some degree of ambiguity between original sentence and any other option.