Sentence Correction

Marty Murray wrote: Before he went to the show, Jim had repaired his bike chain.

The past perfect indicates that when one even happened the first had already happened. So that version basically conveys that before before - yes two befores - he went to the show, Jim repaired the chain.

didn't get this part clearly - especially the red part!

can you please help ?

thank you!

ngk4mba3236 wrote:so, basically you're saying that for causal statements using "because" or "since", GMAT uses past perfect - ONLY when there is a clear indication of one event happened earlier than other/s and this is true in the case of either two past events or multiple past events.

am I correct ?

Here is what I am saying.

In GMAT sentence correction there are perhaps two dozen things that the GMAT has done repeatedly that are fairly specific to the GMAT. Other than when you see those specific things, when you are handling GMAT SC questions, in order to get them right, your best bet is to do what makes sense.

The GMAT uses SC questions primarily not to test your knowledge of grammar or certain rules, but rather to test your skills in seeing the logic of situations and making decisions.

So I have some questions for you.

Would it make sense to use the past perfect when two events happened contemporaneously?

Would it make sense to use the simple past for the first of two events so that a sentence is created without any indication that the first happened before the other when in fact the first did happen before the other?

The purpose of a sentence is to convey something and if a construction does not convey what it is meant to convey then it is not effective, and not the right answer to a GMAT SC question.

Having said that, I realize that English including the English in GMAT SC questions is full of conventions some of which are bizarre. So I can see why you are wondering about this.

So the simple answer to your question is that what you described is correct, logical sentence construction, and as there are no other options for the GMAT to use in the cases in question, there is no chance that the GMAT would do anything other than what you described, although I would adjust what you said a little to make it the following.

"GMAT uses past perfect - ONLY when there is a reason to convey that one event happened earlier than other/s"

ngk4mba3236 wrote:

Marty Murray wrote: Before he went to the show, Jim had repaired his bike chain.

The past perfect indicates that when one even happened the first had already happened. So that version basically conveys that before before - yes two befores - he went to the show, Jim repaired the chain.

didn't get this part clearly - especially the red part!

can you please help ?

thank you!

The past perfect indicates that one event happened before another did.

The word before also indicates that one event happened before another did.

So in some cases you don't need both the past perfect and the word before, and using both can even be considered redundant.

This concept can show up in GMAT SC in an answer choice that conveys that one event happened before another by using the word before. In such an answer choice, the past perfect may not be necessary for indicating that one event happened before the other, because the word before takes care of that.

Here's the bottom line. If you see an answer choice describing two events that happened in sequence and the past perfect is not used but the word before is used, that answer choice may be correct.

Here's an example.

Before the government officials implemented the new regulation, they confirmed its legality.

First: confirmed

Second: implemented

No past perfect.

Correct.

Marty Murray wrote:So I have some questions for you.

Would it make sense to use the past perfect when two events happened contemporaneously?

Would it make sense to use the simple past for the first of two events so that a sentence is created without any indication that the first happened before the other when in fact the first did happen before the other?

marty,
I see what you're saying!

p.s: my answer to both of your above two qs would be NO - a clear NO! (let me know please if you think I'm incorrect )

Marty Murray wrote: "GMAT uses past perfect - ONLY when there is a reason to convey that one event happened earlier than other/s"

I guess, there is NO better way to sense this aspect, other than meaning/context of the sc at hand. right ?

Marty Murray wrote: The past perfect indicates that one event happened before another did.

The word before also indicates that one event happened before another did.

So in some cases you don't need both the past perfect and the word before, and using both can even be considered redundant.

This concept can show up in GMAT SC in an answer choice that conveys that one event happened before another by using the word before. In such an answer choice, the past perfect may not be necessary for indicating that one event happened before the other, because the word before takes care of that.

Here's the bottom line. If you see an answer choice describing two events that happened in sequence and the past perfect is not used but the word before is used, that answer choice may be correct.

Here's an example.

Before the government officials implemented the new regulation, they confirmed its legality.

First: confirmed

Second: implemented

No past perfect.

Correct.

so in case of TWO past events, can it be taken as "standard" that for the earlier past event, GMAT would hardly (or perhaps NEVER) use before and past perfect together (in the same clause) ?

(or can GMAT sometimes employ BOTH before and past perfect together in the abovementioned case ?)

hi marty,
any thoughts on my abovementioned TWO follow-up posts ?

fyr..
1. https://www.beatthegmat.com/og-question- ... tml#770981 and
2. https://www.beatthegmat.com/og-question- ... tml#770982

curious to know your reply.thank you!

GMATGuruNY wrote:

Janewq wrote:Hi Marty Murray
Thanks for your explanation, but I still a little confused.
In this sentence, there are three verbs,ie. announced,resulted,fell. In order to decide the right tense, we need to figure out the timeframe about this three actions. According to my understanding, intermittent showers fell first, and then there were some results, and finally, there was a official announcement. All there three actions happened in the past.
Normally when we decided whether to use the past perfect, we just compare the time sequence of two actions that happened in the past. If action B happened before action A, then we for action B, we use the past perfect contruction, and for action A, we use the simple past construction. however, in this sentence, there are three actions( Action A, Action B, Action C,from the lastest to the oldest) happened in the past, how can we identify the right tense for the action B ?
Looking forwards your reply
thanks
Jane

OA: No appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen the day before.
Marty and I have explained the justification for had resulted.
While had resulted and had fallen are both in the past perfect tense, the modifier in red makes it clear that the showers fell BEFORE no increase resulted.

Can you guide us a bit on no vs not any split here?
It seems no is always prefered to not any in GMAT.
Thanks

ngk4mba3236 wrote:

Marty Murray wrote: "GMAT uses past perfect - ONLY when there is a reason to convey that one event happened earlier than other/s"

I guess, there is NO better way to sense this aspect, other than meaning/context of the sc at hand. right ?

YES! exactly, and thinking in that way is going to serve you very well in GMAT sentence correction.

ngk4mba3236 wrote:so in case of TWO past events, can it be taken as "standard" that for the earlier past event, GMAT would hardly (or perhaps NEVER) use before and past perfect together (in the same clause) ?

(or can GMAT sometimes employ BOTH before and past perfect together in the abovementioned case ?)

I guess you got it right when you said, "GMAT would hardly (or perhaps NEVER) use before and past perfect together (in the same clause)."

Still, there are certain situations in which using the past perfect and before makes sense. So I would not rule out completely that the two could be seen together. Probably the most important takeaways from this discussion are not eliminating answers because the simple past was used with before and using logic and considering context and effectiveness of construction when evaluating answer choices.

I am close to certain that at this point you are well prepared to handle any question in which there is a construction involving past events and the word before. You have seen that using the simple past can make more sense than using the past perfect, and you have been alerted to the need to consider the logic of what is being conveyed.

For some more insights, you could check out this cool post.

https://www.knewton.com/resources/blog/ ... n-gmat-sc/

Of all things, someone just posted an example that uses before with the past perfect, and I explained why that construction makes sense in that particular example.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/aristotle-ex ... 90598.html

Marty Murray wrote: Still, there are certain situations in which using the past perfect and before makes sense.

marty,
did you mean this ONLY for TWO past events or even for more than TWO past events as well ?

ngk4mba3236 wrote:

Marty Murray wrote: Still, there are certain situations in which using the past perfect and before makes sense.

marty,
did you mean this ONLY for TWO past events or even for more than TWO past events as well?

I think that you could figure out as I did that using the past perfect and before could work for more than two events, depending on the situation. In any case, here's an example.

Before Amy won the lottery, she had worked in customer service and had saved money by eating on only every other Tuesday.

yes. I can understand that for more than TWO past events on GMAT, past perfect and before could work well, depending on the situation.

but what I'd like to clarify is whether you meant that depending on the situation on GMAT, past perfect and before could work as well in the case of ONLY TWO past events ?

p.s: however, didn't get why you used "past perfect" in your last example ?

ngk4mba3236 wrote:yes. I can understand that for more than TWO past events on GMAT, past perfect and before could work well, depending on the situation.

but what I'd like to clarify is whether you meant that depending on the situation on GMAT, past perfect and before could work as well in the case of ONLY TWO past events?

Yes.

Before she learned to swim, Sarah had avoided being near water.

ngk4mba3236 wrote:p.s: however, didn't get why you used "past perfect" in your last example?

Try scrolling up to the post four posts above this one and clicking on the link to thread containing the Aristotle question explanation. In that thread I went over using past perfect and before.

Marty Murray wrote:

ngk4mba3236 wrote: but what I'd like to clarify is whether you meant that depending on the situation on GMAT, past perfect and before could work as well in the case of ONLY TWO past events?

Yes.

Before she learned to swim, Sarah had avoided being near water.

ngk4mba3236 wrote:p.s: however, didn't get why you used "past perfect" in your last example?

Try scrolling up to the post four posts above this one and clicking on the link to thread containing the Aristotle question explanation. In that thread I went over using past perfect and before.

well, this specific part seems to be the toughest to understand!

also,(it's bit confusing because) you mentioned in the other thread you referred to that such subtle differences between two answer choices are unlikely to appear in the GMAT, so could you please anyhow share any official sc in which we see that past perfect and before work together in the case of ONLY TWO past events as well ?