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Confusing SC - question 2

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Confusing SC - question 2

by saurabh2525_gupta » Sat Nov 06, 2010 9:51 am
San Franciscans of the 1890s mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within twenty years a powerful muncipal had made this boast a reality

(A) yet within twenty years a powerful muncipal had made this boast a reality
(B) yet within twenty years a powerful municipal 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 withinh twenty years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality
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by gmat_perfect » Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:05 am
saurabh2525_gupta wrote:San Franciscans of the 1890s mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within twenty years a powerful muncipal had made this boast a reality

(A) yet within twenty years a powerful muncipal had made this boast a reality
(B) yet within twenty years a powerful municipal 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 withinh twenty years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality
Tricky one:

Hope, GMAT will not play such tricks.

Municipal within 20 years is NOT CORRECT----C is out.
D and E are out because reality did not make anything.
The use of past simple is NOT CORRECT IN B. We need a past perfect because the previous part has used past simple.

Answer should be A.
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by EducationAisle » Sat Nov 06, 2010 12:40 pm
gmat_perfect wrote:
The use of past simple is NOT CORRECT IN B. We need a past perfect because the previous part has used past simple.

Answer should be A.
Well, your answer, I believe is correct, though reasoning is perhaps not (We need a past perfect because the previous part has used past simple.). The previous part (San Franciscans of the 1890s) is actually an event that occurred earlier in the past and so, by your logic, the previous part should have been in Past perfect.

This sentence, rather typical, actually logically describes three events:
1. San Franciscans of the 1890s (who mocked the claim)
2. 20 years passing after that
3. The boast becoming reality within those 20 years

Now, between 2 and 3 above, since 3 happened earlier in the past, we need a past perfect to describe it (had made).
Ashish
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by GMATMadeEasy » Sat Nov 06, 2010 1:37 pm
what is the OA ?
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by saurabh2525_gupta » Sun Nov 07, 2010 8:53 am
Thank you all taking time and replying

@EducationAisle
I agree that Past Perfect is required to describe the sequence of events in the past. What San Fransicans did happened earlier so ideally the non underlined part of the sentence should have "HAD". Since we can only play with the underlined part, use of "HAD" here makes it appear to happen before the action of San Fransicans. Please throw some light on that.

Regards
Saurabh
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