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Antarctica, Earth's--verb tenses nightmare

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Antarctica, Earth's--verb tenses nightmare

by atulmangal » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:27 am
Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, is covered almost entirely by ice, and, while it has long seemed that it was immune from global warming, scientists have recently found that the average annual temperature for the continent has in fact risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1957.

(A)has long seemed that it was immune from
(B)has long seemed to have been immune from
(C)has long seemed as being immune to
(D)had long seemed immune to
(E)had long seemed that it was immune to
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by gmat_perfect » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:36 am
immune to is the correct idiom, and the option D is correct.
Thanks.
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by gig92 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:41 am
atulmangal wrote:Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, is covered almost entirely by ice, and, while it has long seemed that it was immune from global warming, scientists have recently found that the average annual temperature for the continent has in fact risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1957.

(A)has long seemed that it was immune from
(B)has long seemed to have been immune from
(C)has long seemed as being immune to
(D)had long seemed immune to
(E)had long seemed that it was immune to
IMO: D

concision; correct idiom "immune to"; "it had long seemed immune" is adjective modifier for the subject "Antarctica".
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by gig92 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:41 am
atulmangal wrote:Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, is covered almost entirely by ice, and, while it has long seemed that it was immune from global warming, scientists have recently found that the average annual temperature for the continent has in fact risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1957.

(A)has long seemed that it was immune from
(B)has long seemed to have been immune from
(C)has long seemed as being immune to
(D)had long seemed immune to
(E)had long seemed that it was immune to
IMO: D

concision; correct idiom "immune to"; "it had long seemed immune" is adjective modifier for the subject "Antarctica".

WHAT is OA?
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by force5 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:44 am
IMO- B

for 2 reasons i will not prefer Had... we are talking about an extended period when this place was supposed to be immune from warming. Also to maintain parallelism we cannot suddenly introduce past perfect.
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by atulmangal » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:48 am
immune to is the correct idiom, and the option D is correct.
Thanks.
@perfect and gig

OA is D only NO DOUBT

and i also solved this question on the basis of IDIOM knowledge...and then concision.

But, i want to understand the use of past perfect in the OA.

All the non-underlined portions contains only present perfect tense...don't we require a past tense in sentence if we are applying past perfect in a part of it????
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by force5 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 6:18 am
come on guys!! who says Immune from is incorrect..... please check and update. Atul is correct in asking the question regarding HAD... There is no use of had in this sentence. The answer has to be B
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by Target2009 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 7:28 am
My Pick D.
My Que is "Why not Had?". Sentence tell us .. temp risen 1 degree since 1957 and before that it was seemed to immune. One past action before another SO had seems fime to me.

But debate is still open.. :)

@Atul : Kindly mention Source in your post please.
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by atulmangal » Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:29 am
Target2009 wrote:My Pick D.

My Que is "Why not Had?". Sentence tell us .. temp risen 1 degree since 1957 and before that it was seemed to immune. One past action before another SO had seems fime to me.

But debate is still open.. :)

@Atul : Kindly mention Source in your post please.
@ Target

Source is Knewton prep question bank

Now answer this...according to you the ans is D then in that case the complete sentence is:-

Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, is covered almost entirely by ice, and, while it had long seemed immune to global warming, scientists have recently found that the average annual temperature for the continent has in fact risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1957.

Now, can you please mark the past tense...if you can find out???
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by atulmangal » Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:33 am
force5 wrote:come on guys!! who says Immune from is incorrect..... please check and update. Atul is correct in asking the question regarding HAD... There is no use of had in this sentence. The answer has to be B
Force according to my sources the correct IDIOM is IMMUNE TO only, if you have any other reliable source where IMMUNE FROM is written then please mention the name of the source and the usage of this IDIOM shown in that source..

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by aspirant2011 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 10:36 am
i would also go with D because for two reasons -

1. idiom "immune to" something is correct
2. If i see all the options then i realise that the option with "had" is the right one because sentence says "scientists have found" means its talking about the present, therefore, before "finding now" something was in past...................so "had" needs to be used...........
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by atulmangal » Wed Apr 06, 2011 10:50 am
aspirant2011 wrote:i would also go with D because for two reasons -

1. idiom "immune to" something is correct
2. If i see all the options then i realise that the option with "had" is the right one because sentence says "scientists have found" means its talking about the present, therefore, before "finding now" something was in past...................so "had" needs to be used...........
I agree that past tense has to be used but can't digest the use of past perfect...i think it should be simple past ...instead of had seemed only seemed should be used...this is my point...please correct me if m wrong..
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by aspirant2011 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 10:54 am
if it would have been only "seemed" then the rest of the sentence "scientists have recently found" wont have been parallel..............don't you feel that the action started in the past and is still continuing therefore, the usage of past form of "have" is necessary...............please correct me if i am wrong
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by atulmangal » Wed Apr 06, 2011 11:15 am
@aspirant
if it would have been only "seemed" then the rest of the sentence "scientists have recently found" wont have been parallel..............don't you feel that the action started in the past and is still continuing therefore, the usage of past form of "have" is necessary...............please correct me if i am wrong
first of all, see the answer of your above question(red)

for an action continuing from past to present we use Present Perfect..which is
has/have + past participle (3rd form of verb)

NOT had plus past participle or past perfect

second question, regarding parallelism

the underlined portion is in COMMAS and a modifier, i don't know how you are trying to make it parallel to the IC.

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by jaygirl001 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 12:15 pm
for some reason i can't use the formatting tools...

Now answer this...according to you the ans is D then in that case the complete sentence is:-

Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, is covered almost entirely by ice, and, while it had long seemed immune to global warming, scientists have recently found that the average annual temperature for the continent has in fact risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1957.

Now, can you please mark the PAST TENSE if you can find out???


"had long seemed" is the past tense ...this seemed to be the case but then they found something new so it is no longer the case.

"has long seemed" implies that this continues to be the case, but that is not the intended meaning of the sentence (refer to "scientists have recently found")
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