Sentence Correction

San Franciscans of the 1890’s mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within twenty years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality

(A) yet within twenty years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality

(B) yet within twenty years a powerful municipal will made this boast a reality

(C) yet a powerful municipal within twenty years will make this boast a reality

(D) yet this boast had become a reality within twenty years because of a powerful will municipally

(E) yet within twenty years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality

[spoiler]OA -A, Why A ..why not B?? why do we need a perfect past here?[/spoiler]

"Will had made" is the OA? Really? I'm surprised. That's not grammatically correct. "Will have made" or "had made" would be, but not "will had made."


Edit: Oh, whoa, TOTALLY read that sentence wrong. Will as a noun... obviously I need more sleep.

In that case, you need past perfect tense because the action is continuing into the present, but refers to a specific time period.

I think the OA is correct because


San Franciscans ... mocked the claim ... yet ... a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality

Again, reading will as a noun rather than a verb. We are discussing two actions that happened sequentially in the past but may continue into the future (ie, LA is still a world city, whatever that means). So we use "had made" rather than "made".

My question is -- San Fransiscan's mocked the claim of LA being a world city in 1890s ... and post that within 20 years "Municipal will" had made??

don't we use past perfect for an action which happened prior to some other past event??

i would have understood if it was ---had mocked the claim and within 20 years..municipal will made the boast a reality...

Am i missing something?? i always get ques involving past perfect wrong...

Edit: Oh, whoa, TOTALLY read that sentence wrong. Will as a noun... obviously I need more sleep.

wow! totally fell for that too!

2010gmat wrote:My question is -- San Fransiscan's mocked the claim of LA being a world city in 1890s ... and post that within 20 years "Municipal will" had made??

don't we use past perfect for an action which happened prior to some other past event??

i would have understood if it was ---had mocked the claim and within 20 years..municipal will made the boast a reality...

Am i missing something?? i always get ques involving past perfect wrong...

i can't explain the grammatical intricacies, but the perfect past sounds right to me.

experts, can you please weigh in?

got it...it has to be past perfect here....

i was too rigid in my definition of past perfect ...but myohmy has given a very brief but wonderful explanation....