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Manhattan Question

by priyankamishra11 » Tue Sep 23, 2008 5:59 pm
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

Please explain your answers ?
Regards,
Priyanka
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by niraj_a » Tue Sep 23, 2008 6:07 pm
E

can eliminate A and C because one can't know about something that has not been established yet.

eliminate D because thats just wrong.

eliminate B, because Tubman is the subject here and was the main force behind the creation.
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by Mani_mba » Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:06 pm
I choose E.

I eliminated A and B because of the usage of plural verb "were" for singular subject Harriet Tubman.

With C, D, E as contenders, E is correct as it correctly uses the tense "what would become known ... ".
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by 4meonly » Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:07 pm
Can anybody make more clear for me why

had become known as the

is not correct here?
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by mmslf75 » Sat Jan 16, 2010 12:58 am
priyankamishra11 wrote: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

Please explain your answers ?
IMO C

Can any1 explain why E is corect ?
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by sreak1089 » Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:07 am
I think its C.

"would become known" is confusing because, would refers to future tense and known is past tense. Also Harriet Tubman along with other formerslaves and white abolitionists is still a singular noun and hence requires singular verb "was". Hence C.
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by singhag » Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:04 am
IMO C

Requesting Priyanka to please post the OA
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by mmslf75 » Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:17 am
singhag wrote:IMO C

Requesting Priyanka to please post the OA

OA is "E"

I thought BEFORE wil indicate a time marker here ..!!
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by A.Kiran » Sat Jan 16, 2010 5:15 pm
subject is plural.

It is not the singular.

Along with x, and Ys....is plural.
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by kg » Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:44 pm
I guess subject is still singular, for e.g. Harriet Tubman, along with other former slaves and white abolitionists this entire thing is attached to along with , so Harriet...along with ......- singular
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by vijay_venky » Thu Jan 21, 2010 5:31 am
I found the issue with the tense usage, "had become known as".
1. Had is used if there are two actions happening at different times in the past, and even then "had" should be attached to the former action. this is not the case here because helping happened first.
2. Had is used as a past tense of "has". but we are not sure whether "has become known as the Underground railroad" is past tense now, so I don't think even this is the case.

HT, the subject though attached with others remains singular because the attachment is not with the conjunction "and".

Combining all these I ended up with the option E.

Please correct me if I am wrong.
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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:40 pm
Received a PM asking me to reply.

Core of the sentence is:

Tubman helped create what X and Y. (with X and Y parallel)

"helped" is simple past, so the sentence is in past tense.

X is "(had / would) become known as the UR"

Using "had" here would indicate past perfect tense. Past perfect is used when there are (at least) 2 past events, one of which happened before the other. The event that happened first / earliest would get the past perfect tense.

Here are the two actions:
Tubman helped create
what (had / would) become known as...

First, the UR has to be created. Then it can become known as the UR. So you can't use past perfect here for the later event.

Eliminate A and C.

D uses present perfect progressive: "has been becoming." The OG says that present perfect progressive "describes something that began in the past, continues into the present, and may continue into the future" (quote from OG11). Is that what's goign on here? No. Eliminate D.

That leaves us with either B or E, both of which use "would become." "Would" can be used to construct something called the "future in the past." This is when the verb's action lies in the future relative to the main verb in the same clause. In this case, we've got a main verb ("helped create") and an attached clause ("what would become known as..."). At the time that Tubman "helped create" this thing, it wasn't yet known as the UR. That was in the future, relative to that timeframe. So that's proper usage of a would / future in the past construction.
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