Toughie

sam2304 wrote:A historian attempting to predict in the 1870’s which nation would take over world leadership from the British probably would have guessed Bismarck’s Prussia and been quite wrong.
(A) have guessed Bismarck’ s Prussia and been
(B) have guessed that it would have been Bismarck’ s. Prussia and he would be
(C) have guessed Bismarck’ s Prussia and would be
(D) guess Bismarck’ s Prussia and be
(E) guess that it would be Bismarck’ s Prussia and would have been

OA after discussion. Please explain your pick.

is it [spoiler]A?[/spoiler]
i think future perfect tense from past point of view is required here.

user123321

IMO -A;

I think it is D, because would have guessed is past perfect tense... it has already been done...I think it is D...

IMO - A

OA A

Can someone explain what's wrong with other options ?

I am not so sure whether i am right or wrong. I will explain my approach.
lets suppose the historian is quoting that in 2011 for 2020. then i thought he will say something like.

A historian attempting to predict in the 2020's which nation will take over world leadership from the British probably will have guessed Bismark's prussia & been quite wrong.

since it is said in past, we need to change will to would.

here IMO D is the only contender, because rest of the options has either parallelism issues or tense issues.

But with D the above statement becomes
A historian attempting to predict in the 2020's which nation will take over world leadership from the British probably will guess Bismark's prussia & be quite wrong.

compared to this, A looks good.

user123321

both statements are hypothetical past (and didn't really happened). So have to use "would have"

I would have done this but I didn't;

He would have taken over --> hypothetical ; he didn't take over
and He would have been wrong; --> hypothetical ; he was not really wrong;
/** Had I chosen that I would have been wrong **/

"Would have" understood for the second verb ( been);

can someone explain what is wrong with "c".
Also suggest any resource on Tenses.

imskpwr wrote:can someone explain what is wrong with "c".
Also suggest any resource on Tenses.

I dont want to take sides but yes manhattan sc guide has got some info, In that there is one chapter dedicated especially for tense usage. There they discussed how to handle these kind of problems.

user123321

sam2304 wrote:A historian attempting to predict in the 1870’s which nation would take over world leadership from the British probably would have guessed Bismarck’s Prussia and been quite wrong.
(A) have guessed Bismarck’ s Prussia and been
(B) have guessed that it would have been Bismarck’ s. Prussia and he would be
(C) have guessed Bismarck’ s Prussia and would be
(D) guess Bismarck’ s Prussia and be
(E) guess that it would be Bismarck’ s Prussia and would have been

In B, C and D, would be (present conditional) cannot be used to express what might have happened IN THE PAST. Since the subject of the sentence is a historian...IN THE 1870's, the perfect conditional tense is needed: a historian...in the 1870's...WOULD HAVE BEEN quite wrong. Eliminate B, C and D.

In E, would guess (present conditional) cannot be used to express what might have happened IN THE PAST. Since the subject of the sentence is a historian...IN THE 1870's, the perfect conditional tense is needed: a historian...in the 1870's...WOULD HAVE GUESSED. Eliminate E.

The correct answer is A.

The correct answer employs ellipsis, the omission of words whose presence is understood: a historian...in the 1870's...would have guessed...and [would have] been quite wrong. Although the words in brackets are omitted, their presence is understood.

The following has some useful explanation:
https://www.grammar-quizzes.com/condition2b.html