IMO C

it was believed by the employee that she had won a moral victory.

Two things happened. Believed happened after. so "had won" is appropriate.

IMO C -

"Having forfeited her severence package in order to keep the rights to her intellectual property" should modify 'who/ what forfeited the severance package'.

A - Wrong - Incorrect Modifier
B - 'She' lacks clear referent
C - Good
D - Incorrect tense - ' ...moral victory to have been won'
E - '...that the moral victory was won' - fails to answer the question who won the moral victory.

sbasha wrote:IMO C

it was believed by the employee that she had won a moral victory.

Two things happened. Believed happened after. so "had won" is appropriate.

Makes sense, but what's wrong with E, although it sounds little awkward.

E is passive, so not as good as the active in C. Also the simple past tense is problematic because winning the moral victory comes before she believed, so should be past perfect.

OA is C.

We can close this thread with the conclusion that 'had' is required because "Two things happened. Believed happened after" she won the moral victory, "so 'had won' is appropriate," as explained by sbasha.

Kaplan said that "had" is required becuase of "Having forfeited," which confused me.

Thanks everyone.

Hi
I am weak in verbal, pls excuse me for my novice ques
Can you pls explain me the ans ?? I didnt understand !!
the sentence structure is

Having forfeited ..., it was believed by .. that she had won ...

there are three verbs .. fortified , was believed and 'had won'

MGMAT says that "past perfect tense(had won)" is required
(i) when more than 2 verbs
(ii) for earlier action , latter action should be in simple past
point (i) is there for sure, I am unable to understand why should we have past perfect tense for won ?? and did it happen 1st ??

and how to decide between C and B

can i conclude that "... believed .. had [past+participle] ... " is an form ??

how do i decide between B & C.