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SC - Verb tense-Past perfect

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by karthikpandian19 » Tue May 08, 2012 12:22 am
A 1972 agreement between Canada and the United States reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump into the Great Lakes.
(A) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump
(B) reduced the phosphate amount that municipalities had been dumping
(C) reduces the phosphate amount municipalities have been allowed to dump
(D) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities are allowed to dump
(E) reduces the amount of phosphates allowed for dumping by municipalities
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by mathbyvemuri » Tue May 08, 2012 1:02 am
A is wrong as a past perfect verb "had been" is used
B and C are wrong for using "phosphate amount", a wrongly coined word
E is wrong as the present tense verb "reduces" is not proper to represent a old agreement.
My take is "D"
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Tue May 08, 2012 6:28 am
A 1972 agreement between Canada and the United States reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump into the Great Lakes.

(A) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump

(B) reduced the phosphate amount that municipalities had been dumping

(C) reduces the phosphate amount municipalities have been allowed to dump

(D) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities are allowed to dump

(E) reduces the amount of phosphates allowed for dumping by municipalities

We can't use past perfect "had been" because the tenses would then mean that we're changing the amount that we dumped in the past, which is impossible. This gets rid of A and B. C and E use present "reduces" for an event that took place in 1972.
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by GmatKiss » Tue May 08, 2012 12:16 pm
IMO : D
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by jordan23 » Wed May 09, 2012 8:02 am
IMO D
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by karthikpandian19 » Wed May 09, 2012 10:17 pm
OA is A

There was a great tie btwn A & D,

But when i looked into D, it says "reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities are allowed to dump"
"that....to dump" shld have occurred earlier than it "reduced the ....phosphates"

So the remaining answer A is suitable

GMAT experts please clarify


Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:A 1972 agreement between Canada and the United States reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump into the Great Lakes.

(A) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump

(B) reduced the phosphate amount that municipalities had been dumping

(C) reduces the phosphate amount municipalities have been allowed to dump

(D) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities are allowed to dump

(E) reduces the amount of phosphates allowed for dumping by municipalities

We can't use past perfect "had been" because the tenses would then mean that we're changing the amount that we dumped in the past, which is impossible. This gets rid of A and B. C and E use present "reduces" for an event that took place in 1972.
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Thu May 10, 2012 10:00 am
The OA is D. I just looked it up in my copy of the OG.
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by Spidy001 » Thu May 10, 2012 1:58 pm
A and B use past tense reduced to change something that has happened before that time in the past. A and B are wrong.

C and E use present tense reduces . C is trying to reduce something that is no longer allowed.

Answer is D.
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